


What Banal Desires

by Molly_Ann



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Sexual Psychopath Richie, Sibling Incest, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-04-26 13:12:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Ann/pseuds/Molly_Ann
Summary: Richie sighs, and opens his mouth, looking up into the distorted spray from the shower with half-closed eyes. Water catches on his lips, and the experience reminds him of blood spraying free from a particularly vicious slash, raining down fine and light like saltwater on his lips.The sensation feels strangely erotic.





	1. Banal Desires

**Author's Note:**

> So, I did this in three weeks after watching season 2. Most of it was typed up drunk, mainly because I'd cover about 2k words in a night if I had a bottle of wine beside me, so I apologise in advance for typos. 
> 
> This, for me, was a quest of self-satisfaction. For a fan of the movie before the show, I greatly missed Richie's creepy, perverted, and frankly, downright terrifying attitude. The bond he had with Santanico really did throw that all to the wind, but I also really liked how much more intense it became between them, so I left that in this little AU too. 
> 
> Kinda shaped and re-moulded characters in here to my own tastes, and I'm well-aware that it really wont be to some of yours. I'm also well aware that most people like their Richie sassy and moderately sane. Which he really isn't here.
> 
> Buckle up. It's gonna be one hell'u'va ride.

For Richie Gecko, most people had the depth of their own body. Once taken apart (organs underneath bone, sinews and muscles stripped from bone, veins taken from the flesh and the blood from those veins, _hotstickydamp_ like a woman, running through the cracks he couldn’t seal between his fingers) it was almost as if that was all they ever were. Like all they ever would be, were purposeless, fragile beings.

He’d not always been this way. But he is now, and that’s all that matters. Richie hums, and thinks of a high school analogy about puberty being the caterpillar cocoon to turn boys into butterflies. He supposes that instead, he’d emerged a monster with rotting wings and a hideous, deformed abdomen. Not that he did emerge hideous. Richie sometimes thinks he’s so beautiful that he ought to mutilate his own face to let all the ugly in his mind show.

There are several people Richie knows that he feels no pull to dissect. Knows that even if he tried, their very existence wouldn’t be found in their dripping remains, no matter how vigorously he searched through them. One of those people is his brother, Seth. Seth who should be one of the most shallow and easily-guessed human beings ever. Seth, who Richie is busting out of a county penitentiary in fifteen days.

Richie sighs, and opens his mouth, looking up into the distorted spray from the shower with half-closed eyes. Water catches on his lips, and the experience reminds him of blood spraying free from a particularly vicious slash, raining down fine and light like saltwater on his lips. The sensation feels strangely erotic. He moves one of his hands from half washed soap sud hair, down to his already-rising dick. Richie braces himself against the tile with one hand, and jacks himself hard, so hard he has to slow down to avoid injury.

He thinks of silent horror in dying eyes, of fear so intense, of thick, broad lips wet with their own blood, coltish bruised black and blue legs, firm rosy nipples to bite down on- his own surprised moan cuts his chain of thought off, and he bashes his fist against the tile in a small act of violence. He envisions the tile smashing and his hand pierced by pieces of glazed ceramic. Then, he reaches under the showerhead to feel the water pour down over it, like the blood he can almost see flowing from the envisioned injuries in his fingertips.

The idea of blood in the air and all around him feels so real he can almost smell and taste copper-salt in the shower water. He shuts his eyes, blind to anything except his own fantasy, his free hand smacking out to the tile again when he thrusts so hard into his fist that it nearly knocks him off balance. He chases his own orgasm with a mindless, animal desperation, until he comes to an image of the receptionist downstairs, screaming for more as he rams into her from behind, blade drawing intricate designs into the knobs of her spine.

-

 When he sees Seth again, there’s nothing to feel. Richie thinks he should be confounded by the fact that his brother’s here, and with him again, but there’s just nothing. They embrace briefly, but only briefly enough so they can bolt under the security door. Richie can feel something alright, but it sure has nothing to do with being reunited with Seth. Just remembering it sends a pulse to the base of his dick. _Pretty boy._ That’s what he’d called him. The guard, sat on his heels, the flutter of his eyelashes and the wetness of his eyes almost distracting. The glock, lowered to pretty boy’s throat as his adam’s apple moved the barrel, and the flesh underneath his chin caught on the sight. Richie’s boot had moved between the guard’s legs, and began toeing his balls as if he could feel the heat underneath the leather.

 _“Suck it.”_ He’d said, the words reverberating around his skull. They’re running into the car park now, and Richie almost stumbles over his own semi. The way pretty boy had finally given up and the tears spilled down his cheeks, when he opened his mouth to _fellate his own gun_. Richie had looked almost solemn to leave that guard, had spewed profanities about how he must be the whore of the jail, how much fun the inmates must have with him. In the end, he’d had to swipe the key card and run.

He is a professional, and a genius, and there was no way in hell he was getting distracted from a job by a face that looked oh-so-fuckable with a gun down his throat. There’d be plenty of time for that in Mexico.

The very same face distracts him now, as his foot lifts the clutch, and his other goes down onto the accelerator of the getaway car. Seth, in the passenger seat – wolfish grin in his eyes and on his lips, expression reminiscent of their days starting out as petty thieves along the Texas border – bangs his fists on the dashboard and howls with glee. “Richie, you son of a bitch, we did it. Now drive, baby, drive, before they can put me away again.” Seth yips again like an overenthusiastic fox and grabs Richie’s head towards him to plant a dry victory kiss on his temple with a loud smacking noise. Richie grimaces, and swerves the Chevy out onto the main road, the speed of the car and the sharpness of the corner jolting them violently.

Richie, for once, shares his brother’s frenzied glee, as the adrenaline turns him giddy and the erratic movement only furthers the sensation. He allows a grin to spread across his face, shaking his head in disbelief as they speed, leaving the jail in the rear-view mirror. All of this, however, does nothing to diminish his diamond-cutting erection. The image of tears and wet eyelashes, spit soaked mouth quaking around the Glock, stays with him for the next span of miles.

-

The Gecko Brothers barely have time to celebrate their reunion before its back to business. Of course, Richie wouldn’t have it any other way and deep down, he knows Seth wouldn’t either, no matter how much he tried to run off to apple-pie and picket fence life with Vanessa before serving time. Richie still can’t bring himself to hate her for getting between them and the work. He just hates that Seth ever married a woman like that (all salacious smiles, voluptuous curves, pretty _, pretty_ eyes and a manipulative, domineering nature that could bring any red-blooded American to her materialistic whims).

They draw up a plan in a night but still wait three days before heading to Abilene, mainly stocking up on weaponry, partly to brush things over with Carlos about the transaction. Seth shares some stories about prison, jolly over many, many beers. He doesn’t reserve information – tells Richie everything about who he liked, who he hated. Who he fought. “And, bro, I made so many bad jokes about dropping soap that I was almost disappointed when no-one ever bent me over in the shower!” And Seth laughs so hard he snorts beer, swaying even as his back rests against the bedframe.

Richie smiles at him blearily from where he is slouched against his because it almost feels normal. He’s not drunk like Seth, but he’s getting there.

“So what did you do for all those years, huh?” Seth’s head tilts forward drunkenly, not breaking Richie’s gaze for a minute, even as he swigs from his can. Richie feels his palms sweat more. He’s hot from the overheating room and the alcohol already, but this is different. This is lying to his brother.

“Same old, same old. Small-time jobs here and there, bring in enough cash to live off.” Seth snorts inelegantly, leaning back again.

“Didn’t find yourself a girl and settle?”

_Yes, Seth, I did. I found two hookers, a runaway and two junkies. If I can remember correctly, brother, all five of them are in various pieces, buried about a wood so dense you’d think you’d already crossed the border._

But, instead, if only to ease Seth’s mind, what he really says is, “Nah. I met a couple, but it wasn’t for me.”

Seth’s eyebrows furrow slightly, except it looks really quite stupid because he’s all drunken-glassy-eyed. “Didn’t work out, huh?” Richie smiles in an attempt at forlorn, looking off to the window. Seth smiles the same way back to him, weakly, and Richie knows that he’s believed. Not that it matters anyway, with Seth blackout drunk.

“Guess I just got bored.”

-

With Seth back a lot of his bloodlust sinks away, almost like a receding toothache. Richie hates this fact, yet knows exactly why this happens and how much of a positive it is. Knows that he should be able to keep himself in check, at least until El Rey when they part again. _Thinks_ that he knows this, at least.

In the bank, it’s a different story.

_Richie isn’t crazy – he’s just controlled by urges. Richie does not listen to a little voice inside his head, telling him what do to and who to mutilate. He just follows his dick for the prep and the murder, and follows his mind for the clean-up. Which is why he is so fucking confused when he sees her._

And by _her_ , he doesn’t mean the bank clerk, who he’s currently walking to the vault with a blade at that sweet spot between her shoulder-blades. He means _her_. He means the dusky cherry, cupids bowing whoresmile and those dark black rimmed eyes, and irises almost impossible to differentiate from her pupils. She teases him, bares her neck. Smiles. Calls to him. He’s trying to crack into the vault, and casts an eye to the bank clerk, to make sure Seth still has the gun on her. But it isn’t her there.

“Richie.” The phantom moans, eyes slipping closed in pleasure. “Set me free.” Her head tilts back, and he breathes out a shaky breath, white knuckling the safe. He closes his eyes, and turns around, but she’s reflected off the shiny-clean stainless steel in front of him, her lips moving, silently speaking the words, repeated over and over again. He shakes it off, and closes his eyes, and listens to the safe’s clicking silence.

“Richie.” He can hear Seth only just over the pounding of his own heart. He leaves his eyes closed, pretends to still be working, as the blood washes so fast inside him. He feels like every nerve ending is vibrating to its increasing pulses. He is a genius and the calm and collected one out of both of them. He should be able to bring himself down from the most tilting highs without issue. But he can’t. Fucking. Focus. He’s so alive, so alive he wants to go back out into the main hall of the bank where the rest of the attendants are and shoot enough rounds to settle this restlessness.

He shrugs off the stethoscope, breathing heavy. He’s lost the moment. It just won’t work. “Hey, hey, Rich. Don’t worry, bro. I got this.” As he gets up, Seth’s hand goes reassuringly to his shoulder. “Take her back to the rest of em.” Seth practically throws the grovelling clerk at Richie, and to be perfectly honest, Richie would have preferred to struggle with the safe than struggle comprehending who she is and what the fuck she’s trying to do to him.

He has to piss, though, but he knows that if he takes his eyes off the clerk for a second, she would run and the beautiful creature that taunts him so would be lost forever. Whatever. He walks her to the restroom and crowds her against the far wall, and she makes something of a scandalised, horrified noise when Richie turns his side to her and begins to unzip. He tries to keep the smile off his face when he pulls his dick over the waistband of his briefs. Could be worse. Could be better. He could be hard, which would actually kind of suck, because no one really likes urinating aroused. Don’t they? Richie files the note under ‘things to think about later’ when he isn’t currently trying to rob a bank.

“I can crack a safe.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “I can plan a job.” And really, he doesn’t need to assure ‘Monica’ over there of his capabilities. Maybe it just feels better saying it aloud? He looks down at her, just because he knows holding eye contact and holding his dick at the same time in this situation makes people uncomfortable. He looks back again to shake himself off, because tissue is overrated. But now she’s begging,  grovelling even, and it’s irritating. He looks to her again, goes to tell her to shut her fucking mouth, but it’s no longer her.

The Latina is back, eyes fixed on him, bow lipped mouth whispering “Richie, Richie, Richie,” repeated like a mantra, like a prayer. And she looks directly into his eyes without fear or disgust. “Set me free.”

So he screws his damn eyes closed and focuses again on getting his prick back in his pants. “Are you sure you can trust him?” The clerk tentatively looks at Richie. “Your brother, I mean.” Ah, clever girl. Making him doubt himself and his brother.

But then she’s gone as soon as the words are out of her mouth, and his sacrificial knife is just there, burning a hole in his palm, thumb caressing the metal eye. He looks to her again, and really sees the woman in his visions this time. She really is a beauty, hardly any curve to her, but all the magnificence in the olive of her skin. Her complexion is so pure and unmarred that he wants to pull her apart and find out all the secrets of her body from the inside out. Her head tilts back in a motion so erotic it stirs arousal in his gut. “Cut me, Richie.”

Richie Gecko is not crazy. He doesn’t see crazy, intricate, sexy women in the place of the mundane and shallow, and he most certainly does not see the type that encourages him to mutilate them. She touches his wrist and her fingertips are sincere, and hot. There’s blood in those veins, even if it’s impossible to tell under all of that perfect, latte skin. He wants to see it. He wants to cut her open, and feel the blood on him and all over him, watch it spray into his face him until he can’t see anymore, wants-

“Set me free.” She hisses once again, bringing the blade to her own jugular, and the air is so hot, so heady that he can only gulp and stare as her skin catches and dances around the blade edge.

“You want me to set you free?” He practically croons out, and boy, if he wasn’t hard earlier then he sure as fuck is now. She breathes out a gasp and her eyes fall closed, her head tilting further back. The slight curves of her breast move with each one of those delicious breathy inhales she makes, and Richie digs the blade in further, unable to do anything but pant and stare in aroused wonderment.

“Do it.” She urges, caressing the hand around his knife with her manicured fingertips. He’s so close, and the blade is snug against her, a mere layer of skin between it and her core.

And then the cell alarm goes off, and Richie is just a deeply troubled man assaulting a pleading, sobbing bank attendant for no reason. He flips away the blade, pockets it swiftly, and pulls her out of the restroom towards the vault to see what in God’s all-loving name Seth has done to it.

-

Seth is kinda disgusted with him, but mostly pissed off. And maybe Richie understands that more than he wants to. Seth is a simple guy, with simple wants. His ideal bankrobbing job; enter, a bit of scary, big-worded, guns waving, fearplay to make them think that he’s the type of guy that Richie is, grab the money, and exit. He doesn’t condone murder, not even the death penalty. Or maybe that’s because he would be subjected to it, should they be arrested. And really, Richie knows this. He just doesn’t care.

Not when _she_ still speaks to him.

They’re back in the second car, having ditched the first miles back due to Seth’s paranoia. Though that was probably a useless attempt, because now the whole freaking state of Texas is now looking for two brothers, and the old model cougar that’s currently stuttering them to the next motel. Seth’s driving, because of an unfortunate incident that left Richie with a gaping hole in his hand. He wriggles his fingers, grimacing with the pain. Or grimacing with the idea of losing use of his fingers. Nerve endings be damned.

“Here.” Seth says, and hands Richie a bottle from the glove compartment. Finally, his brother has a good fucking idea. He unscrews the Bourbon with his teeth, spits the cap into the foot well, and swigs angrily. Angrily because he has to hold the damn bottle with his left, and nearly misses his mouth first time. Angrily because he’s now thinking about how his masturbatory habits will fair after all this. Could he fuck the hole in his hand? How much would that hurt? Would the girth of his dick even fit there? He looks down at the angry, puffy gape of it, slotting the bottle between his knees.

He shivers with a sensation he can’t name, and flexes his fingers. Winces again at the bite of it. At the phantom pain surrounding the wound, for the feel of his own dick pushing through, like stretching out a hole in an earlobe with a larger metal needle. Considers getting his own ears pierced, solely for kink purposes. Them his nipples. Then his-

“Not for drinking, Rich. Sterilise it.” Seth, still behind the wheel, gestures to his fucked hand, and Richie snaps out of his trance. Thinking is something he does in abundance. He supposes it’s to make up for his lack of words. He looks back down to his hand from Seth, and examines it carefully.

“You sure it needs any more liquid? At this rate, I’m going to bleed _into_ my pants, not just on them.” Richie shakes it impatiently. Cries out as something inside shifts painfully and fucking unexpectedly. “Fuck, alright, give it here.” There’s so much blood he’s almost desensitised to it. Usually, the sight of blood – even his own – would excite him. Now, he’s more interested in what’s actually bleeding.

He can feel Seth’s eye’s burning into him, brows furrowed in something that could be part worry for his health, and part worry for his _mental_ health. Richie suddenly has a sick and awesome idea, and moves his hand in front of his face. And looks directly at his brother through the make-shift window. Seth takes his eyes off the road again just long enough to see Richie’s eye through the hole, and his face contorts in disgust. Richie wants to giggle but resists the urge, and just snorts instead. He takes to holding his hand mostly out the open window, and pulling the bottle from between his knees.

“Got your balls screwed on?” Seth looks over again, a smug smile on his face.

“Screwed on tight.” Richie replies nonchalantly and takes another long, impassioned pull of Bourbon. He takes a final mouthful, and spits it on his own hand, the exterior of the car, the fast moving road. The pain burns like nothing else. He thinks he’s hard, but wouldn’t be able to tell, even if he looked down at his crotch. He hisses, refusing to give Seth the satisfaction of hearing his pained cries again. Richie shakes off his hand again, but with less rat-caught-by-a-terrier and more tentative flexing.

Seth throws him the duct tape they picked up in Benny’s, and Richie somehow manages to put the bottle back between his legs and catch the roll in a movement so swift it sloshes whisky on his blood-stained pants. Seth chuckles to himself, eyes on the road once again. “Nice reflexes.”

Richie doesn’t answer, because it was a dick move that he should have anticipated. Instead, he tears open the seal of the tape with his teeth, and sets to wrapping it, tight as a tourniquet, around his hand. During this very moment, he realises he is indeed hard. Which is slightly worrying, but also exciting in its own way. Richie should really be worried about how often his dick responds to the job, and the brutality of it. He isn’t. Maybe Seth already knows. So much for hiding everything.

Richie hasn’t exactly been subtle. And that isn’t his fault – it’s the sugar-voiced, sensual Latin beauty that keeps popping up in his head and encouraging the worst of him at the worst times. If only she’d talk to him while he were in the car, like now, or jerking off, like he will be whenever he gets a moment free of Seth. Which might be never. Which means he can’t test out whether his penis fits through the hole in his currently, aching, duct-taped hand. That’s a damn shame.

A real. Damn. Shame.

-

The motel is an easy choice. It’s retro, scrappy. Dirt cheap. Practically empty. Which is why it’s so easy to rush-hustle bank clerk hostage lady inside without issue. She doesn’t even scream. Maybe Richie has just broken her in so well. He wonders why they haven’t _disposed_ of her yet. Since he’s realised that the salacious lady he’s been having visions of has absolutely nothing to do with their apple-pie companion, and more to do with his fracturing psyche, there’s nothing in keeping her around anymore. She’s a liability and the feds will open fire regardless of her presence.

Richie also has no idea what to think of what the hell is happening in his mind. _It was bound to happen eventually, right? You can’t be homicidal without at least a few screws lose._ But, like he does in moments of business, he ignores what he’s thinking and refocuses on Seth giving their new lady friend a talk about Mister .45.  He can see that Seth’s itching to get out and onto the open road, have some proper food and maybe even go get laid. Prison can do a lot of funny things to a man, including depriving them of burgers and pussy. Maybe what he said back there in the bank about Seth being a snatch-hungry deviant isn’t far off.

Or maybe that’s just the way Richie’s mind is oriented. Big Gecko over there could just be really fucking hungry. Either way, he sits quiet, gun still pointed clearly upon bank attendant, who’s making muffled noises of agreement to whatever Seth’s saying, nodding her head furiously. For a man who hates murder, he really does talk so prettily about it. If he had the mean streak Richie’s always been known for, he might’ve actually pulled off that solo job five years ago.

After the hostage brief is over, Seth pointedly looks over to Richie, and then pointedly at the colt in his hand. “I’m going to get us some food. Everyone be cool, and you’ll all-” stares once again, deep into Richie’s clouded glasses. If it’s an attempt at intimidation, he doesn’t scare. “-live through this.” Seth finishes his sentence, pockets his gun, and swings out the door like a cheap weekend rockstar.

Richie looks over at the hostage, who is now visibly shuddering. He almost laughs, but isn’t that unprofessional. Just slouches back and watches her in sick fascination as she drools into the gag. Bank clerk knows exactly what he’s capable of, and especially what he’s capable of without Seth’s observation. He considers pissing on her, just to be ironically reminiscent about what happened at the bank. Wrinkles his nose visibly, doesn’t even try to hold in the disgust. Even a man like him has turn-offs. She watches him now with more tentative curiosity, like maybe she knows he is as insane and unpredictable as he feels.

_She’s wondering who you’re talking to_

And the sugar, accented rumble is back like it never left him back at Benny’s. Richie feels like banging his head against the closest hard surface, and knocking whatever is going on up there so hard that it rattles inside his skull. Bad timing, beautiful. And she rumbles a pleasured noise in his mind like a praised feline, can almost imagine her arching her back into his touch as he pets her rear. Thinks about collaring her sometime, on her hands and knees. Dressed in nothing but the black leather around her neck, the olive of her skin tantalising and _everywhere,_ breasts swaying as she crawls to him on her hands and knees. The rumbling laugh is back, but it sounds mocking and sharp. Maybe just thinking about that pissed her off.

He ignores phantom Latina, and hauls himself to the single queen in the bedroom. Thinks it bizarre that they’ve only got a single bedroom, or at least single beds. Whatever, they don’t intend to sleep here anyway. He lays on the bed and flicks through channels absentmindedly. Turns the TV off. He’ll be damned if he’s watching cartoons while hostage lady is sitting there awkwardly, presenting herself as the most easy victim ever, breathing still frantic even when he isn’t sat there leering at her.

And now that there’s no comparison to be made, she isn’t as plain and rudimentary as he originally thought. She’s Hispanic, but without accent in her voice. Broad hips, full breasts. Quite probably a rounded ass too. Wide terrified eyes. Enticing, but with girlish charm. Nothing like his sordid phantom woman. He subtly pats the bed beside him while she watches, eyes seemingly widening further in horror. She obliges though, and walks over, breathing husky through the gag. She sits down – flinches when he casts his good hand behind her head to pull the knot free.

“Make a noise, you’ll regret it.” He says. She shivers under his hands, and he can feel himself sweating. He takes the rag off her face from behind, and really, who can blame him for slipping a hand through her silken dark hair as he retreats? Next up, he goes and gets the knife from his duffle. He looks at himself in the mirror for a long time, and notices that his glasses are slightly askew. His hair is gelled back though, perfection and ease to the sculpt of it, so he settles for just readjusting his glasses and gripping the knife in his hand. He turns to her, keeping the malice in his eyes, while the rest of him casually sits back down and leans behind her.

She gasps in terror, and he can almost hear her heartbeat quicken through her shoulder-blades as he leans further in, and nicks through the fabric with the blade. Richie knows Seth’s binding knots are frequently too complex to even try untangling. Or maybe he just likes scaring people. Heh. Richie slides the knife back into his duffle, and sits back down beside her. Bank teller’s breathing has evened out for now. He feels slightly disappointed, but settles back down nonetheless.

He flicks on the TV. Cartoons are back on. He guesses he’ll be damned. Maybe even more so when there’s a shooting pain in his head, momentarily droning out the searing ache in his palm. His ears ring – he feels dizzy. Taps his legs, drumming on them as they in turn drum again against the floor. He feels like a caffeinated child, when in reality, all his senses should be dulled down to a slow, deadbeat thrum of the fifth of Bourbon he and Seth shared on the road. If only he could go jerk off somewhere.

The pain in his head grows, so he up and paces, moving like he needs to move to keep his heart beating. If the bank teller thinks him a freak, she doesn’t say anything about it. Probably in fear for her life.

_Richie!_

Phantom lady moans in his head again, and now he really feels like hitting it on the next flat surface. He can’t see her, but he can hear her. For some reason, it’s more unsettling than just seeing her in place of mundane ‘Monica’. He stops pacing in front of the mirror, and says what he is in front of it, if not reminding himself or Monica, then informing the goddess that plagues his living dreams.

“I know…” She stammers. As if agreeing with him will save her life. “I know that, I do.” She finishes, gulping her words out like fat, toddler tears.

“So when something doesn’t make sense, I figure it out.” He confirms, and picks up his notepad from the duffle. He considers grabbing the knife out instead, but Richie figures he has enough time to actually plan her murder, should it come to that.

She doesn’t shut up for a second, even as he angrily pens in his latest work, left incomplete from when he started it. She has phantom goddesses’ face, but instead of liner dripping down in tears from her inner eye corner, it’s blood. Rivers and rivers of it, covering her neck to clavicle. He hasn’t even started to pencil-sketch her torso and breasts, but he won’t bother now. Not when he’s so distracted. Bank teller keeps rattling on about her children, and he would really like her to shut up. When she does, it isn’t for long.

“Can I see?” She asks quietly. But she’s also intrigued. Richie likes that a lot more than he admits. He hands her off the notepad, closing it so the chances are she’ll open to a page much grislier than the one he’s working on. She does, and it shows on her face. He watches her reactions, and even as the horror clouds her eyes, she is still cowardly-polite when she hands it back to him.

“You have a gift.” She whispers, like the tears are going to spill over again. Richie smiles a little and takes the notepad back, almost feeling more at ease now.

Just as he’s flicking to his desired page, blood drips onto an arcane drawing of human sacrifice he sketched while out in the woods. It spreads under where he’s drawn the ritualistic altar, and bleeds through the page. “Fuck.” He utters under his breath, and lifts his hand into the light. Sure enough, there’s tacky, wet running along his arm, staining his dress shirt under the jacket. He feels dirty, like the duct tape wrapped, drowning with coagulated blood, and peeling around his hand. He grimaces, but not in pain. Decay is a disgusting process. When he’d killed, he’d buried the bodies while they were still warm, just so he didn’t have to deal with the detrivores gorging themselves while he carried the corpse.

“Your hand.” Monica murmurs, like she’s actually concerned. “Do you want me to-”

“What, you a doc as well as a teller?” Richie hisses, slapping the notepad closed on the bed with his functioning hand. She shivers again, eyes still wide and doe-like.

“I have basic first aid training for my children.” She manages, gulping back more tears.

Hm. Works for him.

-

If Richie had known the process would leave them in such close proximity, he wouldn’t have agreed to it at all. Sure, he gets to drink more, and the hole stops being a bleeding hole and starts becoming a… hole(?), but Richie has not been normal in a while. Being bandaged or stitched up feels strangely erotic, even if it’s Seth that’s doing it. And Seth is so far up his list of ‘people he wouldn’t fuck’ even without adding ‘brother’ to the reasons why. Richie gets one bottle of the complimentary measures down his gullet before Monica is picking the other one up to pour over his hand. It stings like a bitch, but doesn’t everything nowadays. He utters a noise of discontentment.

“Bet you don’t use Patron on your kids scrapes.” He says mostly under his breath, if only to distract himself and set her at ease. She ignores her response though, and inhales deeply of her hair when the ties off the sling. She smells like fear, old sweat. Patron. Or that could just be his breath. He’s dizzy from the alcohol again, feeling the shot mix with everything already in his system from an hour before. He sways into her before he can stop himself, catches himself on the basin with his good hand to stop himself falling.

And then out of the corner of his eye, spots his bad hand, hovering over the basin. Which has seemingly grown a fucking eyeball out of the hole in the palm. He gazes into it in wonderment. The eyeball flicks in Monica’s direction, just… _Eyeballing_ her.

_She wants to be free._

The voice in his mind speaks again, the drawn out salacious accent running through him like a sensation, as if her tongue were dancing on his cockhead. And no matter how alien the eye in his hand looks, he feels himself growing erect for her like he always does. Richie looks over to where bank clerk is working on an intricate sleeve.

_She wants you._

Looks like it, _querida_. He talks back to the voice in his head sardonically, with every intent to piss her off again so she’ll leave him alone. He looks back to his hand. The eyeball isn’t there. She just rumbles with that same pleased noise again, and shoots him an image of her nuzzling his chest like a besotted feline. She doesn’t look very feline, and Richie isn’t into pet-play. It still makes him harder.

He looks back to the bank clerk, but she’s moved. She’s sat on the bed, running her own fingers through her hair. Jacket slipping off her shoulders, blouse unbuttoned enough to show an inch of cleavage, she looks through her eyelashes at Richie.

“Don’t be afraid, baby.” She says, removing the jacket, working on her blouse now. “It’s just you and me. You and your little _Gordita_.” And Richie’s too far gone now in his drunken arousal to not turn and stare, once again, in amazement. His dick twitches. He knows somewhere that the real Monica is probably looking at him with terrified wide eyes as he advances on her, all predatory and dark eyed. He doesn’t care. The one he’s seeing right now taunts him by ripping off her blouse, buttons scattering, and unhooking her front-clasping bra.

“You really want me?” He says, and it’s not such a surprise when she nods her head, and strips off her skirt, stockings and panties in one fell swoop. He’s had many girls that wanted him, and many that didn’t. He doesn’t pay much attention to her clothing after that – only on stepping slowly towards, good hand open to support himself on the bed as he gets down to her level. She wraps herself sinfully in the duvet, teasing him with her mocha skin as she covers all intimate parts in the sheets.

“Set me free, Richard.” She whispers, and there’s something wrong because she’s naked, and seductive, and positioned like a whore. But her face… it’s expressionless.

And there Monica is, back like she was never playing with her breasts, wrapped in the sheets and nothing else like a spoiled courtesan. She’s backing away now, in slow drags of her body along the bed. Richie gets angry, Richie grabs a towel to wipe the blood and liquor off his hand, and then gets angry. “Why is it always you, huh?” He spits venom at her. “Why does she want me to hurt you, my little _gordita_?!” And he says it exactly the way he spoke to the voice in his mind, all distaste and sarcasm. He begins to fear that all his Spanish will be spoken so nastily, but abruptly stops when she gasps, loud and sudden.

“What did you call me?” She probes, terrified but still inquisitive. Her ballsy behaviour lasts seconds before he’s on her, bad hand be damned, shoving the bloodied towel in her mouth and tying her wrists together with the discarded bindings.

“She wants me to have you.” Richie coos, getting as much friction against his crotch as he can while he’s upon her. Monica screams around the towel, writhing. Richie laughs aloud, hopes that somewhere, his morbid, salacious Latina will hear him. “Oh, she knows she’ll get what she wants.”

He sits back on his haunches, wolfish and wild-eyed, content with just watching for now.

_Set me free._

She insists in his mind.

_Come to me._

And his trance is broken by bank teller spitting out the towel, and turning onto her side. “How did you know?” She cries, and it’s probably loud enough for next door to hear, but whatever. “How did you know my name?!” Again, her voice is so loud and hoarse he should really gag her again. He goes to do it, but something, like an inner intuition, stops him. She carries on crying in horror, in shame. “How could you possibly know that?! My husband calls me that! During sex!”

“Calls you what?!” He says, pushing closer so he’s kneeling over her hips once again. Richie pins back his dick for a moment, just to listen.

“ _Gordita_.” She wails once again, tears flowing.

“I don’t know, she talks to me.” He replies dispassionately, not understanding why the clerk must yell so.

“Who is-” He startles her out of her words, carrying on about the voice in his head. She isn’t supposed to know this. But then again, _this_ isn’t supposed to be happening.

“Sometimes she shows me things too.” And he looks back at her with the same face he’d wore earlier. She isn’t as enticing right now, fully dressed and scared shitless. It doesn’t matter anyway; he’s obviously got the face just right because she shivers and shuts the fuck up. “I see too much.” He concedes, giving up the predatory, and lowering his head almost right where he wants it – on her skirt-clad thighs.

There’s a small victory when she pets his hair tentatively. He just smiles, and gives in to his drunken sap side. Manages to feel her hips, and maybe her rounded buttocks, with his fingertips. He slides into a half sleep just there, and is glad that Monica only moves when she breathes. It’s soothing.

He rises off the bed and onto his feet when the woman in his head speaks.

_It’s time._

And something as simple as that brings Richie to the realisation of what he’s going to do.

-

Seth comes back with food half an hour later. He smells like pussy. And oily burgers. He serves one out of the bag to Richie, and he takes it, unwrapping it hastily. Richie’s mind is so alive that he can’t even think now, only feel. The scent of something other than blood, or tequila, or bourbon is making his mouth water. But he knows he’s going to have to wait a little while before digging into the monstrous thing when Seth asks, “Where’s the girl?” in a slightly worried, slightly pissed off tone.

Richie only points to the bedroom, pulling a carton of fries out the bag as he waits in gleeful silence for Seth to find his art, all sense of shame and secrecy evaporated. Seth pulls open the door, huffing in annoyance. And Richie, walking up behind him, can tell the exact moment when all the hair stands up on the back of his brother’s neck.

“What is this?” Seth croaks out, gesturing to the bed. “What the fuck is this?” And he pulls Richie around and slams him up against the door. The sensation jars him. It’s not that Richie didn’t expect it – it just hurts like a son of a bitch when the bandaged hole in his hand slaps wood. “This is not who we are.” Seth slams him up against the door harder, and Richie could groan for the way it makes his bones rattle and his still-sensitive dick twitch. “We do not kill and rape women, Richie, we do not.” Slammed again, and this time he can notice Seth’s face through the drunken, satisfied haze - all furrowed brows, anger, disgust. “This isn’t me – say it.”

“This isn’t me.” He says without feeling, eyes drooping closed.

“Say it again.” Seth repeats, and it seems so shallow it’s like one of those bad BDSM pornos he watched as a teen. He almost wants to reply with, _this isn’t me, Daddy,_ but can’t make himself say the words. Instead, as if to compensate for chickening out on his eternally sick mind, he stares Seth down like Seth is the one cornered instead of him.

“This is me.” He says boldly, somehow feeling pathetically empowered, like a teen who’d just slapped his high-school bully.

And then Seth has no idea – no freaking idea what to do with him. His eyelashes flutter, like he’s trying to comprehend something, before he gives up altogether and pulls Richie in for a hug that could crush his bones. It’s probably more for Seth’s comfort than it is his own, but he relaxes into it anyway, wrapping his arms around the older Gecko. He keeps his eyes wide open, staring into the mess he’s made of the bank clerk, and Seth coos into his ear, about how everything will be sunshine and beaches, dying in the arms of a beautiful woman and blah-blah-blah.

He likes the strokes at the back of his neck though – Seth’s fingers calloused and soothing through the fine hairs. It makes him want to nuzzle closer, and maybe, just maybe, bite through the muscle in Seth’s shoulders until his teeth crack on bone.

-

Seth distrusts him. Richie can tell that from the way Seth sends him out of the Fuller’s room dismissively, refusing to acknowledge that leaving him with (ooh yay, more!) hostages was ever a possibility in the first place. Richie can also tell that Seth is nowhere near to figuring him out yet. Older brother wouldn’t have sent him after the girl alone if he knew what Richie’s homicidal urges were actually linked to. Which is good. Innocence is bliss.

And looks like bliss, actually, when he stares out across the pool and spots his target, floating on the water. She’s petite and adrift, an image of quaint beauty, motionless on the surface. He walks closer still, and the woman who plagues his mind offers an image of the girl bleeding diluted red into the pool from a non-existent injury. The blood floods around her, spreading into the water, sinking in. It’s strangely aesthetically pleasing. Until, of course, the girl notices him staring. She rolls onto her front pretty quickly, and front crawls long and deep towards the pool steps.

And by god, he is staring. She pulls herself out the water by the steps, and Richie watches with tunnel vision as chlorinated water drips down the swell of her ass, down and down her slender legs over her slight ankles. He looks back up to her face, where she gazes at him under heavy, naturally dark eyelashes. He looks down again to her breasts. Not much curve there, proportionate to the rest of her. Only slightly disappointing. She holds his gaze, even as she walks past him to her towel on a deck chair.

Almost out of something more than impulse, he slides into his coat to pull out Mister .45. It’s a temptation to see the fear in her eyes, those legs quivering, but he knows it would then be a difficult walk back to the motel room if he pulled that stunt now. Maybe, if he plays his cards right, he could get her to lead him back there. Richie wonders if she’s ever had a man before. Wonders if she is just some preacher’s innocent daddy’s little girl, if she’s pure as a field of unpicked daisies on a summers day. She doesn’t look like it now, locking eyes with him as she turns, towel around her waist.

“Richie, can you do me a favour and eat my pussy for me, please?” The girl says, eyes locked onto his. She seems dreamlike – fluttering lashes and pouted cocksucker lips.

It takes him longer than it should to realise that he’s only seeing what his phantom wants him to see. She laughs maliciously in his head. He opens and closes his eyes, to see that the girl is actually leaning over the deck chair. Out of nervous habit, he plucks his pack of Red Apple’s from his jacket pocket instead of the gun from his belt, and takes out a cigarette.

“Can I have one of those please?” He looks up – the preacher’s daughter is addressing him, for real this time. He tilts the pack towards her and watches in sick fascination as her fingers pluck one out. He wonders if she masturbates. If she cries when she masturbates, because god is watching and he’ll send her to hell for her lustful sins.

“Didn’t your daddy tell you never to do this?” He says, casually.

“Do what?” Her voice is low and seductive, like she thinks it should be. The girl must have been watching the right kind of femme fatale movies. Or just the good kind or pornography. He doubts she’s even seen the good kind – maybe just some soft-core disks at a sleepover, or something. But then again, the internet is a wonderful place.

“Talk to strangers.” He murmurs, low enough to only slightly portray his intentions.

“My daddy says a lot of things.” The preacher’s daughter fires back, swishing her hair. He lights her cigarette with his zippo, feeling almost calmed by the fact that she doesn’t seem to care for social constructs.

“You on vacation?” He says again, a little louder around his cig. He inhales to feel the weight of the smoke in his lungs, soothing like the sun on his face.

She smiles sweetly, and somewhere in his head, Richie knows it’s the smile she conserves for her girl friends at school, and maybe even the boys she likes. Well, he should be so lucky. “It’s not the Bahamas. But it’s nice.” He watches her hips sway, probably an unconscious movement, as she walks away to her designated lounger. The curve of her ass once again gets his attention when she slightly bends over the lounger to retrieve her nondescript towel.

Richie thinks he should be poking his gun at her and escorting her back to her hotel room, like Seth wanted him to. What he really does instead is sit down on a lounger beside her, watching her small girlish mouth as she smokes his cigarettes.

“Do you ever feel like your life is slowly turning upside down?” She says, quietly, as if scared of rejection. There’s sweet melancholia to her voice, in such abundance that he feels drawn to her for reasons that don’t involve her body, or her beguiling youth. “Like a ship flipping over in the ocean and you have no control over anything?” Her cheeks burn, a blush high on them. He turns to face her, swinging a leg over the side so his body crowds her in. She seems unmoved.

“All the time.” He confesses, an impulse to caress her cheek - if only to soothe the look on her face back to tranquillity - so strong he almost lifts his hand to do so. She looks over at him, almost directly in his eyes. “You seem like a nice girl.”

“And how would you know?” She exhales on her cigarette without inhaling. She’s not a smoker – maybe she only wanted one so she could speak to him. The thought excites him, if not sexually, then emotionally. She stimulates him. He’s not had conversation with something or someone so sweet and young that bites back in a long time. And he wouldn’t exactly count the lady in his mind as someone or something – he’s already figured out that she’s a figment of his sexually frustrated imagination, anyway. “I could be a terrible person.” The girl fires back and maybe there’s a part of her, like him, that believes she appears too sweet for all the ugly on her mind. O’, what a mystery, the preacher’s daughter.

“Sometimes, I just pick up on things.” He replies coolly, and immediately his mind flashes to the woman who haunts him. He looks across the pool, and his phantom beauty is there occupying it. The naked planes of her torso are distorted underwater. She’s small and slight, swimming over to him with devil-red lips pursed, eyes spiking with malice. Her mouth opens in a wide grin. Then, she dives under, and disappears beneath the pools surface like she was never atop it. _Not that she really ever was_ , Richie reminds himself. He smiles slightly and returns his eyes to Kate, taking another drag of his cigarette.

“Like underage girls?” she says indifferently, and it’s so unexpected and so his-sense-of-humour that it makes the corners of his mouth turn up in something like a grin.

“That would be despicable.” He replies, allowing himself the smile but not the laugh.

She stubs out the cigarette on the floor, and leaves it there carelessly. “Kate.” She says, without looking at him. “My name is Kate.” She turns her head over her shoulder, and the look she gives him is only wicked if you have a sick mind, and really do like underage girls. He tries to think of how he’d kill her. Stops because he realises he doesn’t actually want to. Richie likes this girl. He still wants to hurt her, to find out whether her emotional pain is somewhat more intricate than the physical. He wants to try and make love to her, instead of just fucking her. It really is a spanner in the works. He would hate to think he’s growing soft on himself.

“Richie.” He smiles once again, and extends a hand. She takes it, but some uncontrollable urge has him pulling it toward him and, leaning forward, kissing it with dry lips. He goes to inhale some of her chlorine-tainted scent, but she pulls away like she’s been burned. Richie looks up at Kate, to find her staring at him, shocked and disgusted. Of course. First-time rebellious preacher’s girl, who’d walked the line of teenage promiscuity and had just realised that she’d fallen over it into hot water.

Shockingly, her face clears and she smiles, maybe a bit too brightly, like she is the one who needs to correct this awkwardness. “Sorry, just not used to that.”

Inside Richie, his phantom woman growls like a pissy cat. He really has to stop with all these feline comparisons – she really is not that catlike at all. Then something clicks in his head

_You’re trying to scare her off, aren’t you? You made me do that?_

The reply is as vague as she is.

_I need you more than she does, Richie._

He takes her last words as an end to their conversation, feeling like a bitch for not arguing back with his own head. He watches, wordless, as Kate stands, fixing the towel over her bust and slipping on a pair of pool sandals.

“Nice to meet you, Richie, and thanks for the smoke. I really must get going though.” And the funny thing is, she actually looks reluctant to leave him. There’s brightness in her eyes, though, that she hadn’t had when they began talking. Maybe the fight-or-flight adrenaline has helped her perk up some. _There will be plenty of that later, too_ , he thinks, somewhat sickly with anticipation to get on the road again.

He doesn’t stand, not wanting to spook the poor thing again. After all, he doesn’t want her paranoid and flighty when he’s tailing her back to her motel room. “It’s no problem.” He scrubs his sweaty palms on his legs – a parody of a nervous, guilty man. “Sorry if I scared you back there. I don’t normally meet underage girls by poolsides, so sorry if I seemed more than a little clueless.” He smiles up at her as apologetically as he can muster. She throws her head back and laughs, and it must have been the right thing to say, because her whole body relieves itself of tension.

“I really would love to stay, but…” She trails off and looks over her shoulder, hand clasping the tuck in her towel at her breast.

“I know.” He smiles, and she awkwardly waves and turns, pacing away. Richie waits until she’s out of vision before stubbing out his own cigarette, and pulling off the lounge chair.

-

He takes two of the ranger’s boys out with crazed vigour. Unloads a couple of rounds into each one’s bulletproof vest, knocking them back on their asses for what comes next. Richie walks between them, as if their synchronised falling had created a walkway for him to step easily between. Feet evenly spaced parallel to their shoulders, he shoots one between the eyes, and the other he stamps until brain matter seeps into the concrete of the 2nd floor motel balcony. All the while, _she_ speaks to him.

_That’s it, Richie… Kill him. Set me free._

Barely ducks a shot from Ranger Gonzalez, but it doesn’t matter now anyway. He’s alive as long as she’s with him. His little phantom beauty. He’s so alive, even though guns and feet lack the intimacy of knives and hands. Even though this could be the only action he gets until months later when El Rey turns sour.

_Focus, Richard. El Rinche is close._

Oh, and he does try. But the way she rolls the _R_ in his name is alluringly immoral, and soon enough all he can focus on is the purring tones of her accent and the way his arm fits so perfectly around the top of Kate’s bust – the way she grips on his for dear life as they run to the RV.

-

Richie’s in the restroom of the RV, splashing water on his face, when _she_ appears to him again. She spins into him like the practiced dancer he somehow knows she is, and pins him against the mirror, face inches from his. She licks a seal across his lips, humming in approval when he opens them up to her and stays still like a well-behaved bitch. Hers are a different shade from earlier – an autumn-browning shade of black cherry. Her tongue tastes like blood. He closes his eyes in aroused bliss, forgetting where he is and that she’s not even really there. Wishes he could keep them open to see how prettily she slides down his torso to her knees on the linoleum floor. Wishes he could see the olive tone of her hand as she drags it down from between his pecks, over his abdominals, to hook into his left belt loop teasingly.

_So close to me, Richie. Almost here._

He gasps harshly, slides his eyes open, and hears her moan, sees her giving him a wide, toothy grin, before working on the buckle of his belt. He can only watch, mesmerised, hips bucking as she drags his clothed dick closer to her grinning mouth by firm tugs on his belt. Richie gives a small noise of contentment, letting her do whatever she pleases, _god yes, fucking use me, mi reina_ until.

Until. Un… Until. Holy fuck.

And those are her teeth folding in, giving way to huge, _fuck off huge_ viper fangs, and she’s still nuzzling at his crotch, like she intends to. Intends to– He wants to scream, wants to yell, shove her away and off, and run from the tiny, stuffy room – but doesn’t, if only for Seth and Kate’s sake. He’s almost gone fully flaccid in three seconds, and fuck if that feels weird, but it’s better than being pointed directly at that – at those… And then, as if she had noticed the mood change or his breathing hitch in the bad way, his phantom lady is nowhere to be seen.

Richie stumbles out of the restroom, irritated and unsettled.

-

So everyone around you assuming that you are mad apparently starts with a loaded gun, blatant racism, and ends in a brotherly bonding session. Yet again, most of this isn’t Richie’s fault. It’s _hers_.

“But Seth, she shows me things. And I don’t know if she’s really there, or if she’s just my intuition in the form of a very sexy woman.” Richie insists – fucking valiantly, if he can say so himself. Seth is on him, like _she_ was earlier, crowding him up against the wall of the RV, and yet Seth’s eyes are so much less sensual than hers– so much more anguished. Angered. Richie can feel every bump in the road they hit, body tingling with sensation, toes curling in his boots.

He can’t help wondering if Seth will slam him against the wall again like he did earlier in the motel. He’d never allowed himself to (or realised that he even could) enjoy his own pain before. Only recently – only in situations where death isn’t a threat, has he recognised that it isn’t about hurting other people; it’s the brutality of the situation that makes him hard, regardless of who’s in pain and who’s inflicting it. But whatever, he doesn’t want to think about any of that now. It’d been so fucking hot earlier, and _she’d_ just ruined it by giving him an image of… Whatever the fuck that was.

“Who is she?” Seth demands, and Richie doesn’t feel like being slammed against a wall and rutted against anymore – more like curling in on himself and clutching his crotch protectively. Even thinking about it makes him nauseated. Turns out that even mutilation and murder fiends like himself still can’t stand the thought of anyone maiming their genitals.

“I don’t know.” He sighs out, taking off his glasses to clean the lenses on his suit jacket. “I really don’t.”

“She got a name?” Seth hisses out, and crowds him in further.

“Not that I know of!” He insists, and Seth just really isn’t getting the point here. “She’s drawing me to Mexico, Seth. Like, the closer we get, the more intense her communication is with me.” Richie frowns, and puts his glasses back on, straightens them out best he can without a mirror. Seth’s face looks concerned. Like not just his eyes, but his whole actual face. Which is even more disconcerting than being looked on with concern.

“It’s just.” Oh great, now he’s doing the worry-adoration face that people save for their own family and people they love just that much. Why, O’ why, does he have such an emotional sap for an elder Gecko? “I worry about you, man. You’re my brother.” And those words of Seth’s are so sappily predictable that Richie could have actually guessed them.

Instead of bringing up anything else, of waving his gun again at the chink, Richie just sighs heavily, in a parody of defeat, holsters the colt and lifts his hands up in surrender. Seth, yet again, brings him in for a disarming hug. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” Richie hums out; really surrendering this time by patting Seth’s back in a way he hopes isn’t too awkward. What Kate said at the pool feels even more relatable than it should do right now. His life really is like a ship, slowly flipping over in the ocean, and no amount of trying to rock the boat back to its normal position with murder, hetero-normality or masturbation, can even out the port and starboard of the ship. Wow. He really is a teenaged girl.

Since when was his life a self-destructive cycle of feigning normality, sexual frustration and then terrifying, emasculating hallucinations?

-

As soon as they pull up to the Twister, Richie feels like he’s hit gold after a long day in the slums digging for it. He wishes goodbye to the fetid summer desert heat of the Texan/Mexican border and welcomes in a cooler and soothing dark. The dusk outside feels like a pulsing rhythm, a throbbing bassline that just gets more lucid the closer he gets to the bar. The RV pulls up, and as soon as he steps outside, he is free of his mortal fetters and belongs to the impending nightfall. He all but ignores Seth and the Fullers, looking around the exterior of the establishment in wonder.

Somewhere inside, Richie feels inane for thinking this much of a neon-lit Mexican titty bar. Somewhere inside, he also knows it is not the bar that makes him feel this way, but the atmosphere and what it holds inside that he’s anticipating. He wonders if this emotion has anything to do with his phantom lady, but when he calls out for her she is silent.

However, outside the main entrance there is something that deducts from the charm of the place. He’s dressed like… Well, dressed like a _clown_. Complete with striped pants, top hat and wide beaming smile. The beat pulses louder and louder inside Richie’s head, inside the building, and he’s so alive and in tune with it that he can feel it vibrating through the desert sand into his feet. Seth is arguing with Jacob and Scott Fuller over something trivial, but it’s almost like he’s underwater and their words are muted and distorted. He just stands, and stares as top hat man continues yelling about _pussy_.

The closer they all get to the doorway, the more insistent pussy guy gets. “Pussy for a penny, pussy for a penny! If you can find pussy cheaper anywhere else, fuck it!”

Richie doesn’t know whether to loathe him or admire him.

Pussy guy is gesturing wide now, and Richie realises it’s towards Seth. Apparently having finished their little spat, Seth and the Fullers catch up and it’s almost laughable to see Kate’s face of shock and Jacob’s lip curl in disgust as the pussy prophet keeps preaching. In fact, he’s focusing so much on the vibration in the balls of his feet from the bikes droning around and the Fuller’s responses that he misses what pussy guy said to piss off Seth so much.

Though, it was all worth keeping focus on the family to see Kate curl instinctively into her daddy’s arm like a much younger girl, and Scott move closer to them both to shroud her protectively. Hm. Must have been something nasty about her. Kudos to pussy guy for having the balls. Shame he’s paying the price for it now, lying on the floor and bleeding from the mouth. Richie steps over KO’d pussy guy first, and opens a door that feels like the gateway to his soul.

There’s beauty in the ancient simplicity in its design. Of course, every titty bar has it’s stage, it’s tables and it’s female employee’s dancing in next-to-no clothes, but not every titty bar has a _band_ playing sexy Latin rock adjacent to the stage, and topless dancer’s giving it their all in _cages in the upper walls_. He can only stand there and admire the damn architecture, the rowdiness, the music, the _dancers._ Richie feels high on an emotion that he can’t name - if he thought murder was a rush, it pales in comparison to what he’s feeling now. There’s no limit on this ecstasy, no pain and no panic.

And then Seth is nudging him forward from the doorway. “Oogle all you want when I’ve fixed us a stiff drink, little Gecko.” He leans in close enough to be heard, and Richie turns to look at Seth, eyes wide with glee. He’s fucking high. _On this place._ Richie feels so mobile now, so free and unhinged. He wraps an arm companionably around Seth’s shoulders, letting the crazed merriment he feels bubbling inside him show on his face. And holy fuck, when did Seth start smelling so good?! He leans closer to inhale the scent of him, looking back at the commotion of the club. _It’s this place,_ Richie thinks. _It’s gotta be._

“Welcome to paradise.” He declares to Seth, pulling his shoulder in tight, jolting the older Gecko out of his own trance.

An amazed, “Yeah…” Is all Richie hears in response, and he grins even wider to himself. _Who’s oogling now?_

-

Walking around swigging from a bottle of tequila probably isn’t the best way to experience the ambience of the place, or to keep his suit clean. Richie doesn’t care, though. He paces away from the table where Seth is feeding Katie-cakes and Scott white rum and into the cavern of the centre-stage seating area, where a lithe, pink-lingerie-clad _chica_ air-walks around a polished brass pole. He stands before her, letting his eyes do the work for the millionth time today. Her ass is firm and toned, and in this position, he can see the sheen of sweat on her full glutes. Richie stares. Feels the bass. Takes another pull of his bottle of tequila. Stares, and stares some more.

The way she moves is turning him on so much - even without envisioning her bleeding - that he’s thinking about tailing the babe when she finishes her show and getting a private dance. The thought, however, is cut short when he feels someone brushing past, too firm to be a woman and a lot closer than they need to be. He readies into a stance to smash the bottle over the personal space intruder’s cranium, though when there’s an exhale over the back of his neck, hot and wet and frustrated, Richie relaxes immediately.

“Eyes on the prize.” And Seth hits him over the back of the head, both smugness and pride in his voice.

“They are.” Richie chides mockingly back, gesturing to the dancer who’s now sliding down into horizontal splits on the stage, pole before her thighs. Seth hits him again, and Richie just chuckles and shakes his head, handing his brother the bottle. Older Gecko takes a drink and hands it back, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “That settle you any?” Seth scowls like he’s not at a titty bar with 30mil worth of bonds strapped to his chest.

“Sure, Richard, because it’s going to be ages before Carlos actually gets here, so I might as well get comfortable waiting.” He huffs out, and Richie tries to listen, he really does. But now hot-pink-bikini pole dancer is upside down and opening her legs _wide_ and it really isn’t fair of Seth _or_ Carlos to want to talk business in a place with so many beautiful women, all lacking in clothing and shame.

“I’m sure it will be okay bro,” Richie attempts to assure Seth, taking his eyes off the beauty for a moment to look like he’s focusing on the conversation he’s supposed to be a part of right now. “Use some of the cash you still have to buy yourself some more liquor, and go get some _pussy_.” And really, the attempt at mocking _pussy guy_ from earlier was supposed to make Seth smile. Instead, he frowns.

“I don’t know, Richie. This place just don’t feel right.” And it almost makes Richie laugh aloud with how contradictory Seth’s opinion of it is. The Twister makes him feel so alive in a way that murder never could. He feels complete, if only for the best part of a night. Richie takes another pull of tequila, and beams at Seth. He’s sure Seth’s feeling of uneasiness will blow over.

“Come, Gecko. You’re starting to sound like the crazy one now.” And he leaves Seth by the babe that could be the fire of his loins to go and join the Fuller’s.

-

By the time Seth comes back, Richie has drank Scott under the table, and is on the way to making Kate confess what dirty little things she’s done in her daddy’s church. If she leans into him a little more than she needs to after a fifth shot, Richie really isn’t complaining at all. Seth sits down next to Jacob with a very similar expression to the preacher on his face. Without words, Richie pushes the rum over to them both, the slight smile on his face never once faltering. Scott eyes Kate on Richie’s arm warily, but doesn’t say anything.

She continues her tale, sniggering the whole time. By the end of her dramatic speech, Richie realises a whole lot of things; Kate Fuller is the most virginal teenager to ever have lived, that she has never been drunk before in her entire life, and that she is a colossal lightweight. She smiles up at him through glassy wide eyes, thick eyelashes fluttering. “Richie…” She begins, casting hair that’s stuck to her flushed, sweating face behind her head with a hand. And even though he’s drunk, and insane, and has sexual hallucinations frequently nowadays, he still somehow knows this is real.

Even more real when, over the ambient Latin guitar and deep throbbing bass, he hears the click of a hammer being pulled back. Richie looks up sharply, panicked passion flooding him at the threat of a gunfight. When all he sees is Seth staring at him, taking a pull of the almost empty rum bottle, he relaxes somewhat. “How many?” He says quietly. There’s no presence behind him, but he rarely trusts instinct over the things this life has taught him.

“None.” Seth says, slamming the bottle down on the table. It’s in that moment that Richie realises that Seth’s left hand is under the table – the hand he shoots with. He grins smugly, vision going blurry around the edges. “And lay off the preacher’s daughter, will you? Jacob here-” Seth gestures with his free hand. “-Thought it would be a good idea to interrupt, but now he knows if he tries, his balls get blown off.” And now looking at the preacher… Wow. That death-glare is like the wrath of God tenfold. Richie wants to laugh.

Instead, he looks towards Kate where she’s still gazing at him through heavy-lidded eyes, and says, “Can you sit up on your own?” in the voice he usually conserves for Seth when he’s injured. She nods blearily, and sits up, sober enough to stop swaying, but drunk enough to look her dad in the eye without a shred of guilt. The hammer clicks off, and within moments, both Seth’s hands are occupied pouring himself another shot. Jacob still glares at Richie like he’s dog shit on his shoe, but whatever. Richie figures that the night will be easier when Jacob Fuller takes the shot Seth’s poured for him. Which he does instantaneously, much to Seth’s delight.

“How’s that for ya, preacher?” Seth grins, the life somehow spurred into him by the alcohol, or the violence. “Sharing saliva with a known criminal?” His grin broadens, and he actually turns to address the preacher when Jacob makes a noise of disgust.

“Whatever, just pour me another.” Preacher man says, and Seth whoops like the party animal everyone knows he is, and obliges.

Richie just shakes his head, and looks around at what a mess he’s already made. Kate’s sat there, absentmindedly chewing her lip. She steals glances at Richie whenever she thinks he won’t notice. Which would be slightly endearing, if it wasn’t so hot and so dangerous. Scott is relaxed back in his chair, nodding his head and tapping his feet to the beat of the music, like no one is watching. Around him, the band and the dancing continues like there will never be a morning to come.

In front of him, Seth and Jacob have finished the rum and are beginning to shot down his tequila. Well then. Richie gets a swig of that before it all goes and leaves the table to go find some sex, blood and violence.

-

He gets what he’s looking for in the form of a game of throwing-knife-darts. The dagger strikes through the bullseye and into the eye socket of the ancient, Mayan décor. Richie grins, despite his initial urge to howl with glee, and takes the money trailer-trash offers him from her too-tight leather corset. He sneers at her frustrated, defeated expression, holding his hands up in victory. To achieve that while being this wasted? Is an achievement indeed.

“So, who’s next?” And there’s hot breath on the back of his neck, and hands that climb around his shoulders sinuously to cover both his eyes. He flinches, ready to spring, before relaxing into the touch when he realises that there’s tits pushing up against his back, and sex-hot breath washing down his clavicle.

“Me.” She says, and he lets himself be lead from the makeshift darts corner, into somewhere that’s presumably quieter. He stumbles only once, and she chuckles into the back of his neck, steering him further right. He feels the brush of silk against his skin, and knows he’s being lead into a private booth. Richie gasps in anticipation when the woman takes her hands off his eyes and spins him into an awkward one-eighty. He wants to look and see, but knows that the reveal will be so much more intense if he waits just a little longer. The moment he steadies himself, he’s pushed down onto a plush couch, his head smacking against the wall. He allows the moan of pleasure to escape, just to show her that he likes it.

He opens his eyes a little in shock, mostly because he can’t bare the tension anymore. She sways her hips to the music, all sexy and smooth. She puts hands on his thighs, spreading his legs. He takes a long look at her face then – she’s not the phantom from his visions, but she could be the next best thing.

“Say my name.” He orders, not even bothering to keep the command out of his voice. She dips down in a drop that must arch her back and make her ass a shapely curve, and the removal of her hands from his thighs when she comes back up reminds him that she isn’t the woman of his living dreams; therefore she doesn’t know his name. “Richard.” He groans out when she turns around and backs that ass up into the seam of his pants.

“Richard.” She whispers from in front of him, and it isn’t even close to the way his phantom lady says it, the R’s not rolled in the same way, and the emphasis on the a is not present.

He doesn’t know why he thinks of it last minute, but it’s out of his mouth before he can process the words. “Say, ‘I want to drink you up.’”

She turns around then, and straddles his thighs with ease. She dips low again, the gold-chain black sheer bikini crotch of her dipping low into his steadily rising erection. “I want to drink you.” She moves closer again, knees knocking on the back of the couch. Her hips undulate hard on him to the beat of the guitar, but still it isn’t enough to make him lose thought process.

“Up.” He corrects her. She looks down at him, height advantage from her position, and smirks slightly.

“Something’s up.” And he lets his head tilt forward when she moves up again to arch her breasts right before his face. Damn, she’s hot, and he’s so damn drunk right now that he’d pay her out half the grand in cash sitting comfortably in the inner pocket of his suit jacket just for her to do what she’s doing right now _all night_.

She grins down on him once again, and his eyes are just about to slit closed when he spies a petite, fully-clothed Kate just stood there watching. It’s somehow more erotic with her viewing him, so erotic that his dick jumps in his pants and he has to focus on the silk curtains in front of him to keep from groaning. He pushes the unnamed dancer off him, dismissing her with a quick, “not now,” and she walks out without a word. If she eyes Kate strangely, Richie wouldn’t have known.

Kate paces into the booth, a little smile on her face from the alcohol as she flops into the couch beside him. “It was kinda dead out there.” She says. As if he doesn’t know that she came to find him for a little more excitement. “Sorry for interrupting.” She smiles at him drunkenly, and his dick jumps again for all the wrong reasons.

“It’s fine.” He murmurs, looking over deep into her eyes. She scoots closer still, until their thighs are touching.

“I just don’t know what it is about this place.” She says, and she’s not slurring one little bit. It surprises Richie, and he considers the idea that she may be acting drunker than she actually is. The theory warms him through, and there’s a small kick when he theorises that Kate could want him just because he dangerous, insatiable, and sexually driven.

“It’s just got this thing about it.” Richie begins, but can’t even finish his sentence. Their eyes are locked, and there’s a heated intensity to this moment that he just hasn’t felt anywhere before. He moves his hand from where it’s sat on his own thigh; throws it over the back of the couch to crowd her in just a little. “It’s just so liberating.” He keeps his voice low and sultry, staying far enough away unless he’s misread the situation, but close enough to her that he can smell the alcohol on her breath.

“It sets me free.” And Richie’s nerves are on fire again with every pulse of his heart, and every flutter of her eyelashes sends him reeling, leaning closer, eyes closing. Kate meets him halfway, and his free hand goes to her cheek. There’s this moment of pure clarity when their lips meet that has almost nothing to do with Kate at all. It feels like his life has been leading up to the moment when Richie realises that the woman in his head is not only within every fibre of his being, but within everything he sees and touches too. She’s in him – she’s in the dagger that he launched through the bullseye earlier – she’s in the silk of the curtains in this room – in Seth – in _Kate_.

Kate pulls back, and when he opens his eyes she’s staring back into his, all wide and watery like she’s about to cry. He wonders if he’s done anything wrong, wonders if she actually wants this at all, before she’s leaning forward again, mouth parted and wet as if she’s ready for the kind of kiss he wants to give.

And whether she’s ready or not, he leads it anyway. He opens her mouth with his lips – licks at them with his tongue, and she makes a noise that sounds turned on as well as surprised. He licks into her mouth, shallow at first, and when she moans again, he pulls back to bite on her lower lip carefully. She tastes divine under all that booze, so divine that Richie’s too distracted to notice the footsteps approaching the curtained-off booth.

“Well, preacher’s daughter strikes again.” And Kate pulls off Richie like she’s been burned, flinching far enough away from him that their legs no longer touch. One look at his brother in the doorway tells him all he needs to know. Richie stays sat down on the couch while Kate hastily storms out under the silk curtains and brushes past Seth aggressively. Richie considers calling after her, but it’d only make their situation worse. Seth already thinks he’s a murderous, predatory pyscho. Which isn’t that far from the truth. Seth only whistles after her as she saunters from the booths and into the bar. “She’s got fire, that one.”

And Seth is… One look at him tells Richie that his older brother is ridiculously, emphatically drunk. Unlike Kate. Another second looking and Richie can sense the hopelessness from back here. Feeling a tad ridiculous, with his tumescent groin and slouched position, he sits up and pats the seat beside him. Seth follows, and quite literally collapses into the couch.

“What brought you here?” Richie says, speaking in his normal voice now that they’re far enough away from the band to hear each other. Seth just looks to him and shrugs.

“Jacob was worried about Kate. I was worried about you.” Seth mutters, turning in to face Richie. He can’t seem to hold Richie’s gaze for the end of that sentence though, looking away and taking another shot of the mostly-empty bottle of tequila he’s brought with him.

“Worried about me, or worried about Kate?” Richie huffs, but at the end of the day, he really shouldn’t be too pissed off that he’s treated like a liability. It’s his own fault that he’s a rapist and a murderer- it’s his own fault that Seth _knows_ he’s a rapist and a murderer. He takes the bottle from Seth, feeling something electric when their finger’s struggle on it together. Richie drinks from it, and hands it back, willing himself not to feel the same emotion he did only seconds before when their hands fumble again.

“Worried about _everything_.” Seth groans in anguish, slouching back against the sofa as if a good throw back of his head could sort out all of his issues. Richie can’t help but stare at the motions of Seth’s neck when he swallows tequila down deep and long. In this position, he can see every inch of his brother’s vulnerability. It’s somewhat soothing. Seth rolls his head forwards again, this time looking Richie directly in the eye. “Carlos is miles away. Going to be a long time until we get out of here.” Richie hums in agreement at Seth’s words and tries to keep the smile out of his eyes.

“Is that such a bad thing though?” He strokes Seth’s hair out of his face, watching as the older Gecko relaxes into the touch. Richie’s almost crooning at this point, and that’s definitely a bad thing. Incest wouldn’t exactly be the most immoral sin on his list of _sins Richie Gecko has committed_ but he doesn’t even find Seth to be an attractive person. Sure, he’s fucking hot, but a majority of his personality traits are just a complete turn-off. Right now, Richie’s so hard and so drunk he doesn’t even want to think. Instead, he just gives in to the moment and the alcohol, and strokes through his brothers sweat-damp hair, letting Seth’s head roll onto his shoulder.

“Well this is gonna be a night to remember.” Seth slurs out and nuzzles in closer still, into Richie’s armpit. He gives a pleased hum, and Richie supposes this should be the moment he pushes older Gecko off. “You smell good.”

Richie grins a little to himself, remember his earlier thoughts. “So do you.” He takes the tequila out of Seth’s hands, if only to take another pull from the bottle himself. Seth snorts at him a little, shrugs. It seems, from this position, that Richie is the elder and the more responsible – even though this couldn’t be further from the truth. Seth grins woozily, and tilts his head up slightly. “You’re drunk.”

Seth snorts again, and looks dead in Richie’s eyes again. “Only just realised that, baby bro?” And he grins again and extracts his head from under Richie’s arm, stops lolling about and sits up straight, knees spreading.

“We ought to get moving, Seth.” Richie chuckles awkwardly, shifts even more-so when Seth leans back to look at him again. “Someone’s gonna notice that there’s two guys in here, and no dancer.” And Seth just chuckles awkwardly too and swigs another mouthful of his drink. Richie has a moment to react before Seth is on the floor on his knees in front of him, hands on his thighs keeping them spread wide. Seth grins wider when Richie doesn’t take that moment to react, stays rooted, letting out a gasp of shock at Seth’s intentions. The now-empty tequila is on the floor at Seth’s end of the couch, forgotten like an abandoned toy.

“What if I was the dancer, Richie?” Seth mutters, tracing his hands up the muscles of Richie’s thighs. Richie gulps and looks down at the drunken seduction of his brother, hoping to god that his prick doesn’t twitch for the stimulation of hands so close. He looks down, only able to focus on the strong hands – the force in them like a rhythmic massage. Truth be told, Richie has thought about Seth in this position many times before, if only for lack of other people to fantasise about.

Though the scenario has always been different – Seth would be malleable as clay in his hands as Richie beat him bloody. He envisions that Seth’s dick would respond to someone even throwing a punch in his direction because Richie had pleasured him so often after a vicious right hook under the jaw. Or, more recently, Seth had been the one pinning Richie down, slamming him against the nearest hard surface with the force of his anger, and then the force of his thrusts. With the force of his teeth against the back of Richie’s neck, biting down so hard that the blunt edges could even draw blood.

However, it just seems so unnatural for Seth to be on the floor now, parting his brother’s knees and his thighs like the red seas with his stroking, wandering hands. Richie shudders, and even black-out drunk and horny, he still thinks better of letting Seth reach his groin. Richie claps his hands down over Seth’s wrists, leading Seth’s hands off of his inner thighs, and uses them to pull him upwards until he’s no longer kneeling. “Seth, I will. And I want you to dance for me.” And Seth’s stumped expression looks slightly more stumped as soon as the words are out of his mouth. “But just not here.”

And Seth tilts his head back and laughs the cluelessness out of his face, advancing again to straddle Richie’s thighs on the couch, not unlike the way the dancer did earlier. “But the dancer and Kate are fine to do this, not me?” And Seth leans closer again until their mouths meet, open and drunk. It’s wet and hot, tasting of nothing but spirit and Richie finds himself reflexively grasping at the hard planes of Seth’s back, pulling him closer. He’s kissing his brother, in the booth of a strip club, and that realisation has Richie rutting, like he’s been electrocuted. It’s hot, so fucking hot, and Seth smells so fucking good.

Richie backs away, almost diving in again mindlessly at the aroused groan that Seth makes when his hands dig in just a bit too hard on a shoulder-blade. “We can’t, Seth.” And while Richie is busy trying not to give in to certain primal urges that are only a little to do with sex - more to do with sexualised violence – Seth uses his distraction to move a mouth to his neck. He bites down gently, much too soft for Richie’s taste, up his collar, to fumble with his teeth at Richie’s earlobe. Richie’s mind darts back to his earlier thoughts about piercings and just thinking about it makes him grunt and buck up hard enough to move Seth too.

“But you want to?” Seth says, right into his ear, like he’s been the metaphorical devil on Richie’s shoulder all this time instead of his currently absent phantom woman. Oh, the things she’d say about this. He almost mourns the loss of her in this moment because he wants her to _see_ him dry-fucking his brother in a booth that’s made for dry-fucking _girls_ in. Richie considers his luck tonight, if only to avoid answering the pointed question for an extra few seconds. Wonders how he came to have so many opportunities for action tonight - first with the dancer, second with Kate and now with Seth. Who’s currently leaning back from Richie’s neck to leer at him questioningly, one of Seth’s hands cradling his side, thumbing over the nipple as if he were a woman. Richie wishes it’d stop feeling and looking so hot, if only to assure himself of his own masculinity.

When Richie doesn’t answer, Seth’s other hand goes down – down, down, down a trail of its own creation, skimming the buttons over Richie’s dress shirt until it situates itself firmly over his dick. Richie looks up from where he’d been focusing, right into Seth’s drunken, mischievous eyes. And how they are alight with impish fire, looking right into Richie’s own, even as his fingers start to squeeze around the outline of his brother’s dick.

Richie can hold in the groan, but not the hiss of pleasure. But Seth doesn’t stop there – he begins squeezing _rhythmically_. And at this moment, Richie thinks it’s entirely possible that he can stop getting hot for maiming and mutilating people all together, as long as he has intense, angry, rough taboo sex until the day he dies. He pushes his hips into Seth’s hand, but there’s not enough friction. His eyes slip closed, and there’s only going to be a matter of motions of Seth’s hand between _needing to run away_ and _needing to come_. “Just say it, Richie.” Seth coos to him and on the way to opening his eyes again, Richie notices that Seth’s hard as nails too, rocking his hips into _nothing_ as he leans back on Richie’s thighs and pleasures him.

Richie feels himself shooting pre-cum into his boxers at this realisation. It’s so hot his eyelids fall again. He huffs and grunts, beginning to sweat as Seth finds the tip and begins focusing on that _through his pants_. Fuck. It’s such a tease, and it’s too much and not enough at once. “Fuck, fuck, Seth.” He huffs out, breathless and high all at once. He lets his eyelashes flutter open as Seth squeezes once particularly viciously, catching Seth’s eyes looking down at him with bitchy expectancy. “Fuck you, Seth. Yes, I want it!”  He snaps out, yet still doesn’t manage to keep the sex from his voice.

Seth’s face seems to turn from mischief to something different in that instant. All glassy-eyed and sex clouded. “So hot, Richie.” He moans, and for some reason, dismounts from Richie on shaking legs. “So fucking hot.” And Richie really does expect Seth to switch positions, or get on his knees again, but instead… He stands there, and makes it a priority to _adjust himself_ in his pants in front of Richie with a wince. Richie can only stare, mouth gaping open, as Seth normalises everything – from his crooked collar, to his tousled hair. He even settles his sex-drunk expression back to something that’s more Seth, and frankly… The fact that his brother can do that is terrifying.

“Seth…” He sits there and wheezes, and my god… Richie thinks that he must look like a disheartened child that’s had no one turn up to his tenth birthday party.

And all Seth can do is grin; offer a hand up, and say, “Come on, Richard. Back to the titty bar.”

And it takes Richie a lot longer than it should for everything to settle in. He lets the shaking rage take over for a second, and swerves to punch the plush sofa cushions. Hard. “Fuck. You.” He grits out, and means it this time. Seth laughs behind him, loud and hard, and it makes Richie want to throttle him until there’s bruises that show the indents of his fingerprints on Seth’s throat. Regardless, he takes the hand, and pulls himself up with it. He’s just been fucking played, and it stings like fuck. “You can take the title of crazy Gecko now, because that was a pretty sick joke to pull on your own brother.” Richie huffs to Seth, and Seth frowns, puzzled. It almost makes him grin, regardless that the joke had been on him this whole time.

“Who said I was joking?” Seth still frowns, and Richie just hisses out a noise of distaste. The fucking fuck. Seth pulls him in closer by his arm, and Richie falls stumbling forward into his older brother. “Just wanna get to El Rey first.” He mumbles, now into Richie’s chest, and it takes all little Gecko has to push Seth off. Richie turns away and readies to walk out of the booth, adjusts himself, (and thank fuck he’s finally starting to soften) half-expecting to hear the infamous laugh behind him. When he doesn’t, he pauses and turns back again, silk on the back of his neck.

And Seth’s still stood there, with that disheartened puppy look about him, probably akin to the one Richie wore earlier, and Richie’s heart fucking jumps. Outwardly, Richie just huffs, and comes to an IDGAF drunken solution, that will solve everything regardless of whether Seth was pulling a stupid prank, or just teasing Richie some more with the hope to rile him up. “Come on then. The tequila won’t refill itself.”

-

They stumble back into the bar like a pair of horny, no-good teenagers, and really, Richie thinks, that’s pretty much all they fucking are. He stops thinking for a while after that, which is probably the best effect that alcohol has on him. The Fuller’s, miraculously, have stayed seated at the table. Kate is busy arguing with Jacob over something, and it almost makes Richie pull Seth back so they can attempt to overhear their squabbling through the calming Latin music.

He doesn’t, though. He makes a beeline for the bar, and gets another bottle of tequila. Doesn’t even check the label, because even a civilised guy like Richie knows there are times for good, expensive drink, and times for the cheapest money can buy.

He’s fumbling with the notes inside his jacket, drunk enough that his fingers struggle to find a twenty. “She’s chosen you, y’know.” And with that, he looks up to the bar to see the rough-and-tough Hispanic bartender looking at him, a dreamy and fascinated look spread all about his face. The fuck. Richie squints at the bartender, and finds out a twenty from his pocket, finally, fuck. He slides it onto the bar, puzzled as to whether he heard the guy right.

“Hm?” He hums, and looks up once again.

“You belong to her now.” And the grin on bartender’s face widens. Usually, Richie would interrogate the guy to see whatever the fuck he meant by that, but now, Richie just can’t be bothered. Too many weird things have happened today; preacher’s daughter gone rogue, Seth pulling a Luke and Leia, phantom lady appearing and disappearing like a fucking spirit, and now this.

“Yeah, whatever, man.” Richie says like the casual red-blooded American that he’s not. “Keep the change.” And leaves the 20 on the bar, grabbing the bottle and turning away.

By the time he gets back to their table, Seth is sat down with a real, broad grin on his face, next to Jacob, feet laid up on the table like he couldn’t be more casual. Richie just shakes his head and sighs, taking a seat next to Kate. There’s a reason why he shouldn’t be staring at her like she’s his next meal, but whatever. He forgets it as soon as she uncrosses and crosses her legs, arching her back out unconsciously as she stretches. There’s a hoot from across the table, which shocks him back into dishing out the tequila into shots, uncaring if he spills drops on the table. Seth’s smile widens, and Richie belatedly realises that it’d been Seth that had catcalled him.

“Jacob here was just explaining why Kate couldn’t drink any more.” Seth makes a gesture towards Kate, but Richie’s already looking at her regardless.

“Her and Scott are only seventeen.” And my god, the preacher man is actually slurring. Richie looks toward Jacob out of pure reflex, and all he sees is the wrath of the lord again, personified. Just through a heavily drunk face. Seth smirks.

“C’mon, old pal. She’s really enjoying it, aren’t you, Kate?” And she almost goes rigid before turning to look deep into Seth’s eyes.

“Yes, I am.” And wow, that’s steely. Whatever killed the mood out here?

Either way, Richie pulls one of the shots he’s poured towards him, pushes one at Seth, and the other two towards Kate and Scott. Taking pity on the poor man, he pushes the bottle towards glaring Jacob. He’s about to begin a toast, when suddenly, the light dims and the band hushes to a quiet. His eyes turn to centre stage, where a spotlight outlines the figure of a man, again Hispanic. He taps on a microphone, if only to get the attention of heckling bikers and the trailer-trash-corset girl and her boyfriend who still stand over by the makeshift dartboard.

“Ladies, gentlemen…” The speaker begins on stage, and Richie can feel tension building in the room already, like a bomb about to go off. He settles into his seat, and swallows down the shot of tequila like it were water. “Tonight, we have a very special guest.” And as he says this, Richie has a sudden impulse to drink more. He feels something brewing, like a storm travelling on a southern wind – and he’ll be damned if he’s staying mostly comprehensive for it.

 He looks across to where Jacob finishes swigging from the bottle, and Jacob catches him looking. Instead of being the dick that everyone has the potential to be, the preacher pushes the bottle over the table to Richie. Richie gives him a slight smile; he’s onto the poor man’s daughter like Adam to Eve, ruined his life by hijacking his family vehicle to some titty bar to Mexico, and all but forced his adoptive son to drink till he passes out – and yet Jacob still isn’t cruel. Now that’s what a fucking man is made of.

“A very special guest, for a very special night.” And now, Richie feels the weight of those words like fifty kilograms in solid gold. It’s a universal phrase – it’s always a special night at a titty bar – but still, there’s meaning to those words Richie can’t fathom. He looks around the table, to Kate whose eyes are glued on stage like a virgin’s to a porno. Richie supposes there’s truth in that analogy – she’s very young and very pure – and would have only seen tonight’s events in brief glimpses of R-rated movies.

Scott’s pretty much passed out – head lolling on the back of his chair as if he were party to a vivid dream. Jacob is leaning back, eyes flicking between all of them like he should still be taking a parental role, even after that much alcohol. And Seth… Richie would think he is as captivated as Kate is… If Richie didn’t know that the intense expression Seth has fixed on the stage was because of the concentration he’s putting into caressing Richie’s inner thigh with his booted feet. He takes another long drink of the bottle, wishing for salt and lime to lick from the breasts of a beautiful woman.

“I give you, the mistress of the macabre, Santanico Pandemonium!” And a hush falls over the whole place - even the bikers shut up – and the spotlight falls to an opening of velour curtains at the back of the stage. Richie’s eyes are transfixed now, and he wouldn’t dare even breathe as the curtains part, and the man on stage makes himself scarce.

She’s still silhouetted – her and her feathered headdress a dark smear across the back of the velour as the curtains fall closed back into place. Richie feels a gasp bubble out of his throat, and isn’t quick enough to hold it in. She steps into the light, and amongst all the Mayan gold adorning her two-piece set and headdress, he gets a look in at her face.

Holy fuck. Not real, not happening. He must look like the picture-perfect expression of shock right now, white-knuckling his tequila bottle, mouth wide open, gaping. “She’s real.” Richie breathes, hoping it wasn’t loud enough for Seth to overhear. She steps out into the light, cape flowing, and he can’t stop himself repeating, _she’s real, she’s real,_ again and again like he’s gone fucking batshit. She’s real. She’s here. She’s Santanico Pandemonium, and she’s the most beautiful woman Richard Gecko has ever seen. Her cape floods around her, and with the opening tune of the music, she throws it off to reveal a handsome white serpent curled around her neck and arms like he was the cape all along.

“She’s real.” He utters, maybe a little louder, and this time he has to take his eyes off her and swig from the tequila again, if only to hope that the taste of alcohol should free him from whatever the fuck kind of vision that this is.

It doesn’t though, and he can feel Seth’s eyes burning into him as much as he can feel hers. It’s like his brain is trying to panic, but his dick is telling him to shut the fuck up and watch the show. Which he does, and that’s probably the fault of the alcohol. The snake darts between her legs at the rear and emerges at her front, and it’s eyes are watching him too, making him focus so closely as it slithers a trail up her mound to her abdomen. She’s a snake herself, and holy fuck, _is that thing double-headed_? The snakehead at her front one-eighties to face the crowd, moving with her as she sashays forwards, controlling the beast with ease. She stands side-on now, and all Richie can do is stare as he feels her whole attention on him, even with the second snake head facing completely the other direction.

And then she disappears as if she was never there, and he blinks for a minute, taking another pull from the bottle, just in case the booze can actually sober him. But she’s back again, headdress removed and snake nowhere in sight, approaching the pole centre stage on her toes. She has all the lithe grace from Richie’s dreams, and fuck all of his earlier reformed talk about no blood - he wants it and he wants it now. Wants to pull apart her legs, layer of skin by layer of skin until he finds the thing inside them that makes her _move_ like that, all sinuous and slow to the pulse of the music. Her hips are an invitation in themselves, and he wants so badly to bruise them black with indents of his hands.

He’s shocked by an image of Seth pounding into her from behind as he takes her sinuous mouth in front, lipstick everywhere on his cock. It’s so good he gasps, but that can always be translated at a pleasant shock of her curving a leg around the pole and grinding against it as if it were more than just an inanimate fucking object. “It’s her.” He breathes, finally coming to an acceptance that he’s seeing her no matter what he tries to do to break the hallucination.

“It’s who?” And Seth must’ve overheard him, because now he’s questioning. Richie doesn’t let his eyes break from the stage for one second – if he blinked now, he may miss something dreadfully important.

“Her. Santanico. The woman I’ve been seeing.” Richie gestures out, and then looks to Seth, realisation hitting like a punch in the gut. “You can see her too?” And when Seth nods out, a little slowly, Richie feels like leaping with glee. She’s fucking real. It’s all fucking real, and it’s so much to fucking handle – even more so when she dismounts the pole to look right into Richie’s fucking eyes.

And holy shit, she’s walking over the tables on her toes like a goddess, and the music dims in the room. She’s in complete control of everyone, silent as if they are all her lowly slaves. Richie especially. God, he’d do anything, _be anything_ , for her. So easily, bikers and truckers and low-lives from the border could steal a grab up on her cooch or her ass, but they don’t. She has everyone’s respect in the building, which would be weird, because what is she if not a stripper? But it’s _only her_ , and if she can invade Richie’s mind with ease, then lord knows what power she possesses over the cruder sex? She holds a hand out, and someone takes it, leading her over the tables towards. Towards-

Him. She’s coming towards him. He inhales a breath, blinks long and hard. Re-opens his eyes, and my god, the full expanse of her fucking perfect body is above him Her hips are still swaying languidly, and her eyes drill into his like she wants to pry them open, like she has a sick fascination with what’s inside people’s bodies too. Even if he wanted to look away, he couldn’t - they’re locked together like a mating pair of dogs. She’s so fucking sexy.

Even more so when she just _drops_ into a smooth crouch and picks up his bottle of tequila. Everything else except her drones out in the background, even as sweet, melancholic violin plays over the dulled beat. He watches in sick fascination again as she opens the cap, and stretches out her legs, toe widening the gap between his slack lips. His eyes cross looking down at her manicured nails.

Richie fucking hates feet. Richie wants to suck salt and lime and tequila all at once off of them. He gets a third of that wish when the temptress pours the bottle down her leg, pointing her toes. He latches on almost immediately, like a starved babe suckling, and feels the perfect strength of her when she stops pouring, pulls her leg away from his mouth. He tries to follow her feet with his tongue, transfixed by her beauty, wanting to devour her whole and make her fucking scream. He’s kicked back gently for his efforts, and the queen shows him some more of that impossible power and flexibility by lifting her own leg up to lick tequila from her own shin. _Fuck me, I’m hard. Again._

He licks his own lips, starved like a man dying of hunger. She never once looks away from his eyes, hungering for his entirety, and it’s somewhat so much more erotic than having her stare down at his dick like she hungered for that instead. And she keeps rocking her hips, side to side, like the world’s most practiced little dancer, eyes leaving him momentarily as she takes a long pull of tequila. His breath catches for what could happen next – can’t believe his fucking luck tonight as she just stares, and stares, before dropping low on the table soundlessly like the fucking phantom she is. This can’t be real – even though he’s felt her toes on his lips, under his tongue and now her mouth dipping down to drizzle tequila into his. His eyes flutter closed – they’re close enough to kiss around the liquor.

He opens his mouth up, to her, hungry and seeking, as the liquid pours onto his tongue, his face. And by holy mother of creation, it’s a crime against nature for something so sexy to be in existence. He searches up with his mouth, and she licks along his lips like she did in the RV restroom before, but now he can feel her saliva and the booze and the texture of her taste-buds on him. It’s so erotic, and he almost doesn’t care that he’s in a room full of horny scumbags, a Christian family, and his brother who is also his lover. He needs her now. On him, and overpowering him, and under him, and _bleeding_ for him. He opens his eyes, a pulse of his dick shocking him into action. He’s so aroused it hurts, and she’d barely touched him. She licks booze off his cheek with that sinuous, liar’s viper-tongue, and when he tries to follow to get the muscle back in his mouth, she pulls away and _licks her fucking lips._

The music picks back up, dark and rocky and melodic, and she steps away from him and back up onto the table, never breaking eye contact until she begins to dance again. He’s swept away in it – she’s so beautiful, garish, _scandalous,_ and he’s probably going to die from the amount of cases of blue balls he’s got today, but whatever. If he dies now, he dies happy. There’s her spit and tequila dripping from his lips and his chin, but he’ll be damned if he cares. The spells almost broken when she walks away, and a sick realisation hits when he considers this the end. The dance is over, and she’ll be his no more.

But then she turns over her shoulder and beckons him with her finger.

It takes him a while to notice, but his heart’s beating so fast that he can’t focus on anything else. He readies to stand, because holy fuck, she’s really indicating that Richie should follow her backstage. His dick leads him upwards towards her, and he’s ready to do anything for her – he’d kill for her without question, and he wouldn’t even bother being discreet about it if she asked for it too. She has him by not only his dick, but the wires of his soul. They are entrapped together, together in soul and body, and never mind all the love and commitment bullshit, he’s so fucking ready for her to jump his fucking bones already.

And then there’s a presence behind him, moments before a sick sound of blade through bone. It takes him milliseconds to realise it’s the sound and _pain_ of his gunshot-ailed hand being penetrated. A-fucking-gain. Wow.

It must be God’s well-intentioned idea that Richie can and should never get laid, ever.

-

In hindsight, maybe that was for the best. They are the last surviving humans of the Titty Twister – everyone else taken underground and juiced for the freaky cannibals, or turned themself, into _freaking. Fucking. Cannibals._ _They’re vampires, Richard,_ Seth says in his head, but he won’t acknowledge that. There’s no way the girl he thought to be the magnificence of his living dreams is Mexican fucking Dracula.

Somehow, he, weird-perv-guy-with-crotch-gun, Jacob, Kate, Scott, and Seth are still fucking alive. The power being drunk and disorderly gives one never ceases to amaze Richie. They were the six people in the bar drinking hard liquor like water, and they’re the only ones left a-fucking-live when really, they should all be passed out, vomiting pure ethanol and stumbling around like seven year olds on crack. Who’d have thought that the drunkards would be the undying?

Or, apparently, five of the drunkards and that stupid bitch-ass Ranger would be undying. Richie’s bleeding out through a hole in his fucking chest, and maybe he would be blessed enough to see Santanico before him not go pink-scaled and lizard-eyed, hissing with those fangs he had _nightmares_ about in the RV, but no. He isn’t blessed, and apparently today has to be a day with so much death, destruction, blue balls and weird shit that he can’t even begin to comprehend what the fuck was going on, is going on, let alone what’s going to happen.

He looks up at her, and she’s blood-splattered with his gore like Kate was earlier after chain-sawing the vampire beast to death, and damn if it made him proud and aroused all at once. But Santanico isn’t Kate; the monster likes blood – and oh fuck, she’s sent Seth sprawling to the ground with the Ranger in just one swipe of her hand. Richie falls to the floor, breathless.

Richie Gecko is dying, even though Ranger Gonzalez is a lousy shot. Richie Gecko is dying, but not rich and fat, and not in the arms of a beautiful woman. Well, he supposes she could be. If she could get rid of those pincers and all those scales defiling the length of her body. It’s almost comical how Mexican Dracula’s faces cave in and wrinkle like Buffy vampires do. Would be comical, at least, if he wasn’t being dragged out across the floor of the bar by one of them.

Whatever happens, he hopes with a dying breath that Seth and Kate make it out alive. He doesn’t really give a flying fuck about anyone else. Tries to imagine wanting Bruce Lee to make it out as well- tries, tires… Where was he? Oh year. Tires. Big, clunky, four wheel dri-

Black-

Black.

-

He wakes up in ineffable agony on a hard surface. It’s not the first time Richie’s been shot – his right hand is proof of that – but it’s definitely the first time he’s been punctured fatally. There aren’t enough words in the world to describe the extreme pain. Try repeating ‘fuck’ so rapidly and angrily that the sound waves spread around the world twice. It doesn’t express even half of what he’s feeling right now.

It’s definitely the first time he’s came to while being mounted by an exquisite, scantily-clad Latina. The pressure of her body against his plays like flint to steel along his bullet wound, and as he looks up from cringing in pain, there’s fucking two of her, and then three and- whoa.

And then he remembers that she’s not a woman at all – she’s a thing.

“Richie.” She hisses insistently, leaning closer over him, and he grunts in pain as her breast – not scaled this time, thank fuck – drapes across his bleeding pec. He blinks his eyes open through the pain, realising that he’s not blind as a mole, so his glasses must still be on. The fuck. After all he’s been through, and still his glasses live to tell the tale.

“The fuck?” And if he really were more coherent in this moment, he would say something a little more intellectual. Her whore mouth smiles, fuchsia unlike all the dark shades he’d seen her wearing before in visions.

“I’d tell you more about what’s going on but we don’t have time, baby.”  And by god, she’s still over him, blood-splattered and leering, the curve of her body on his feline. For god’s sake. He doesn’t want to die a furry. He looks up into her eyes, cold sweat and pain searing him like electricity. He grimaces. Wishes he could look more seductive for someone such as her, even if she is a freaky _Mexican Dracula._ Wishes he could look like the genius, fucking powerhouse man that he is. Even though she’s probably seen enough demonstrations of his strength today anyway. “You’re dying.”

Well no fuck duh. He’s bleeding out all over the temple flo- huh? But… There’s no blood. He looks up at her horrified, pulling himself away like she’s a pissy wasp and he’s just been stung. He looks down to where his pool of blood should be – red smears remain, and down her throat is all dried and congealed, and her chin… He can’t decide whether it’s gross, or hot. If he had enough blood left in his body, he’d let his dick decide. “What… Did you…?” He trails off, and okay, maybe gesturing to his wound made him breathless. This is definitely bad.

She grins wickedly down at him, crawling forward even as he shifts away to sit upright on a column. She hums in agreement to his comment, and he feels slightly ill, but that could just be because he’s… y’know. Dying. He finds something to lean on, wincing when the initial contact shoots more hurt through his chest. Richie worries about how quickly he relaxes into the pillar. Then thinks nothing of it. There’s almost no sensation and thought left anymore, but whatever. Its common knowledge that blood-loss makes people woozy. Or maybe that’s the alcohol? Whatever. She shrugs down at him when he still looks shock-horror at her. “Your blood smelt incredible, and it was going to waste.”

He gulps, still unable to decide whether to be revolted, scared, or aroused. He shifts up further against the pillar, opening his eyes just to lock onto hers. “So I know you, uh… Vampires?” And her eyes squint briefly for the probable misuse of term, but they’ll both just have to deal with it for now. “You stereotypically have a way for solving death?” And her grin goes wide, congealed blood on her chin flaking when the skin is pulled taught.

“It’s what I’ve made for you, Richie. It’s what I wanted.” And her hand comes forward to caress his throat – his own blood still wet on her fingertips. He intakes a sharp breath as her head pulls back with the force of the extending, terrifying vampire teeth.

And then Richie’s almost non-existent conscience gets the better of him. “What about Seth?” He wheezes, lifting a hand shakily to her side to emphasise his words. Or maybe because he’s tired of sitting there with beautiful lady and getting no touch. She turns her head towards him, unnaturally like she has no vertebrae.

“And what about him?” She hisses back, the teeth distorting her words. He’s angered her, and it’s kinda hot. “He can join us.” And she relaxes into his weak-fisted touch on her side, draping herself over him like a silken shawl, lips on his neck. “And you can make him yours in every single way possible.” And well, that was an interesting pitch. He’s about to swerve away into some violent rage about how the fuck she even knows, before the fangs are driving down into his neck. It’s probably intense pleasure and pain like he’s never felt before, but whatever. Richie’s body spasms weakly through it and dick twitches pathetically as if, it too, has just given the fuck up after today’s events.

There’s a weird sensation like any other, and he’s briefly reminded of a scene in the Alien movies in which Sigourney Weaver gets baby aliens pumped down her throat by another fugly arachnid-looking-motherfucker. He grimaces, but not from the pain.

Gross, Richie. Gross.

-

There’s another crazy moment of clarity after all the events of the Twister that really makes several things clear to Richie – crazy, sexy vampire lady wants him to leave with her, and wreak havoc for all the crazy, bullshit vampire politics going on around Texas. On the other hand, Seth wants to run away with him, Kate, and probably wouldn’t be opposed to having Santanico on the trip either, if only because the idea of running away would be to waste life getting really high and having lots and lots of crazy sex. It’s all a bit irrational, and for a man that’s died, done two impossible heists, and pretty much regurgitated a snake into crazy, sexy vampire ladies neck all in one day, it’s too much to handle.

He has to make a decision, but he’ll be damned if he’s doing it now. There’s _sun_ , and _ouch_ , it fucking burns to even look at its rays. They’re outside, which is probably why it hurts so fucking much. Richie and Santanico are sat on the steps of the Titty Twister, shaded pathetically by the building itself. It feels so vulnerable to only be safe due to the position of the sun in the sky, but Richie isn’t complaining. The dusk is approaching once again, and he’ll be damned if he’s letting Seth drive him and Kate back to the closest motel after near enough thirty hours without sleep, or food.

Richie’s eaten, once in a dream, once from Santanico (though, to be fair, the bitching snake had more than its fair share) and once from _Seth_. And what an event that was – hot, wet rush of blood, human and sticky-sweet. Powerfully arousing. Potentially powerfully arousing, if Carlos wasn’t looming over his shoulder the whole time. But whatever, he’ll keep thinking of the exchange as more ‘part of a plan’ and less ‘part of incest’, as long as he doesn’t think about the needy, hot noises Seth made when skewered on his fangs. He’s fucking screwed.

Kate comes over, and it’s almost like Richie’s sixth sense never left when he found Santanico, because he pulls out the unmarred pack of Red Apples he kept with him throughout so many clothing changes, flips one into his mouth, and offers one to Kate. She smiles gratefully, taking the cigarette. He lights theirs both, spying Santanico’s face twist with disgust out of the corner of his eye. Whatever, she’ll have to fucking deal. Kate inhales this time, like maybe in her absence in the Labyrinth had shown her how to. He wonders what the Labyrinth had shown her, and if it really was the truth about her late mother that had given her the lost, abandoned look in her eyes. Or if it was the loss of her father and the fact of Scott’s… Undeadness. She looks fucking edible.

“Thanks.” Kate murmurs, and sits a step below in the sun, between Richie and Santanico.  They both look out to where Seth has his head in the Corvette hood, tinkering with the engine in ways he probably doesn’t even know how to. There are no words, and maybe it’s better that way. Santanico sits quietly beside him, content with dipping fingers in and out the sun rays. It’s the first time she’s felt air outside the temple in possibly a millennia, so he allows her the self-abuse. Until, of course,

“Richie!” And he looks to Seth, squinting at the light over the distance. Seth has pulled his head out of the hood to stand and gaze over at the three of them. “Come start her up for me?” And maybe Seth thinks he’s genuinely suicidal, but there’s no way Richie wants to walk out in the light, even if it is dying away. He scowls at his brother – the best attempt at a pissed off face he can pull without his glasses.

“I’ll burn up, and die.” He says, monotone as possible. So monotone, in fact, that a small giggle erupts out of Santanico.

“Are you two always like this?” She fires up at Richie, only half as pissed off as she sounds, and twice as amused. He chuckles back, and Seth calls for an unsure Kate instead. She departs, huffing in annoyance, but not stubbing out her cigarette in a small act of rebellion.

“Pretty much.” Richie replies around blowing out smoke. “Constant bitching, but we put up with it, because we’re brothers.” And Santanico raises that devilish eyebrow to him, pouting the very same whoresmile that lead them here.

“And lovers?” And it’s so shocking that he chokes out the next drag of his cigarette. But, knowing Santanico’s nature, he really should have expected it. Richie laughs again, and her face never once falters, even when Kate almost trips over the chevvy’s door and near falls into the driver’s seat. Santanico caresses a hand up his thigh, and Richie suddenly forgets the reason why he was laughing so hard. It’s another one of those deep stares into her eyes, lost in the dark tones, before an engine starts shuddering to life in the background and Seth’s whoop of glee resonates around the parking lot. His eyes abruptly turn to the car, where Kate’s dismounting her on shaky, tired legs, cigarette dangling from her lips. The engine keeps a-rumbling, however. Whatever tinkering his dipshit brother’s done, it must have worked.

“I could get used to it.” Santanico continues, and her hand never once lays off its journey, skating up Richie’s inner thigh.

He turns to her and grins, eyes probably wild with hope. “You’d stay?”

“If only for a few weeks.” She turns her eyes on the road again, solemn even as her hand rests on his leg. He’s about to enquire about her statement, when Seth turns to them both from across the parking lot, slamming down the hood. Seth grins wide, hooting in victory again.

“Any chance you two lovebirds can find a way over here without killing yourselves?” He sarcastically remarks, and Santanico literally _growls_ back at him. Richie calms her, stroking over the hand now clasping painfully into his thigh with his own.

“He’s like that with everyone as well,” He says under his breath, though it doesn’t do anything to calm her at all. “Just bring it over, Seth!” He calls to his brother, who reluctantly shrugs and slides in the driver’s side naturally. Kate, automatically, gets in the passenger side, cigarette still in hand, and Richie watches with wide eyes as Seth starts the car up, and pulls her close into the steps of the Twister.  He stubs out his cigarette on the steps, and readies for departure.

Grabbing Santanico’s hand, Richie makes it quick into the back, skin singing where the light touches. He hisses, feels his humane teeth retracting and his face bubble with the potential of scales. Feel’s Santanico jumping in beside him as he shuffles across the middle seat, her hand growing rough and prickling with electric.

There aren’t really any words to respond with when Seth peeks in the mirror and spies them both, Santanico slamming the door and Richie regulating his features, and says, “You alright there, Spike and Dru?”

Sometimes, Richie really hates his brother. Almost hates him enough to let him fall asleep at the wheel on the way back into Texas. Almost.


	2. Santanico

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be a straight-up porn moment... Then I came up with a funny idea to blue-balls Richie again. I'm not sorry.
> 
> I yet again apologise for any typos. Writing and drinking is apparently my thing now

Richie takes the wheel once it gets dark, swapping with Seth just before the border patrol. Santanico takes the passenger seat, carefully and somewhat lovingly lifting a sleeping Kate into the back. There’s a hitchhiker stood in the layby they’re parked in, so Richie pretends to offer him a lift through the window, then pulls him closer by his scruffy leather jacket and allows himself the pleasure of the kill. He watches in morbid fascination as his clothes, hands, and face in the flip-down mirror of the chevvy, change into that of the hitchhikers.

Richie wonders if he’ll ever get used to the weirdness of it. Thanks God that Kate’s still asleep, even through the broken-off screaming of the hitchhiker as Richie had punctured his windpipe. He still watches his own, foreign hands with the same fascination as he’s wiping the blood off the exterior of the car with the jacket, even as Santanico hisses at him to hurry up. They cross the border without issue, being as the still-wanted Richie Gecko is someone else, and the fugitives in the back of the car appear as harmful as lethargic babies.

The first motel in sight is, ironically, the Dew Drop Inn. He parks up in reception, and buzzes in an entirely unfamiliar receptionist out of her dozy sleep once in the building. Out of respect for the others, Richie requests two rooms, one specifically two singles, and the other a double. Seth wakes up in Richie’s arms, halfway between the car and the door to his room.

“Pu’me down.” He whines, and Richie obliges, supporting Seth even as his brother finds his feet on the concrete. Seth stumbles to the door as Richie keeps an arm around his shoulders, another finding the key. Richie is suddenly hyper-aware of Santanico behind him, Kate in her arms. He fumbles with the lock to the room, and somehow manages to push the door to in the end. He pulls Seth to the closest bed, as Santanico comes in around him and places Kate atop the covers of the one closest to the far wall. Kate relaxes almost immediately, curling around and ruffling the blankets in her slumber. Seth, however, is harder to please.

Richie pulls back the covers for him, and only then does he settle onto the bed, spreading out like a dog. “Richie.” He says, eyes wide open now. “You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, casually, and he notices the exact moment when Seth’s eyes close and he drifts off. Richie is only a caring man for his current company, so he allows them to witness the way he tucks the sheets around Seth.

There’s a moment when Richie locks eyes with Santanico over Seth’s sleeping form, and it spurs him into the sudden movements of throwing Seth’s room’s keys onto the nearest table, and pulling his own out of his pocket, flashing them to his goddess as if they mean more than they really do.

-

Turns out, they really fucking do mean just that much. She doesn’t even wait till they’re in the room to suck on the side of his neck like an excited lover, pinning him to the outside of Seth’s door like the ravenous beast that she totally is.

He grunts with the tidal force of her slamming him back, hands hitting the door with a loud smack. She’s so violent in her passions that he doesn’t know whether she’s trying to fuck him or fight him. Richie doesn’t mind that. Really, doesn’t mind that. What he really does mind, however, is that they’re literally a moment away from public indecency, and Richie would prefer not standing out of the ordinary in Texas. He’s back in his form now, so he can feel the hitchhiker blood caking his chin. Santanico pulls back viciously, like she does during a bite, and he can see now that the humanity has left her eyes, viper-sickly-opal replacing them. Her mouth opens in a sordid, wide grin – snake-teeth leering at him.

She looks at him almost lovingly, or as lovingly as Richie supposes she can ever be, tongue darting out to lick the blood off him. She moans in delight to the feel of his hands grasping to her waist, one in her hair. There’s no longer any fear when he looks at those damn teeth – and maybe that’s due to the fact that if there was a mishap when she blows him, it’d just grow back anyway.

He begins to lead them next door to where, ironically, their room is. He had feared it would be too presumptuous to get the double, but now, has no such qualms. There’s something remarkable in the way that Santanico is so forward. When she wants something, she won’t hesitate.

They don’t kiss – not really. Not to any human definition of kissing, anyway. Richie hits the door first, and on the way to fumbling in his own suit pocket for the room keys, Santanico gets distracted and impales his tongue on one of her teeth. Blood streams and she moans again, low and rumbling like the Corvette engine spurring zero to sixty. He makes a noise of his own, drops the keys and forgets what he’s fucking doing for a couple of long, sexy moments. It hurts, and it’s _good_. It’s so good, and he licks into her mouth to feel her gums and incisors play long and painful along his healing tongue.

Santanico chuckles like the whole thing amuses her, and pulls back. When he opens his eyes, she’s licking her lips, tongue red with his blood.

“You like pain?” She says coolly, and in one quick motion, retrieves the keys off the floor. He stammers over his response, suddenly really fucking embarrassed. Well. She doesn’t even bother to see his reaction before knocking the keys in and shoving him hard into the room, leaving him stumbling back in shock.

Feeling it’s only fair to at least try and re-assert dominance, he shoves her back too, now using her body to close the damn door. Feeling like slightly overpowering her, but not angering her, he doesn’t grab her wrists – simply holds her there with his body while she huffs and whines. Richie grins down, and she snarls up. But it isn’t one of her pissed of battle-cries. She likes this too.

“I like a lot of things.” He muses, and casts a hand over her cheek, pulling down at her plush lower lip with the pad of his tongue. He automatically moves closer as she arches up, sliding a leg between her own to bridge the gap. She licks again across his thumb as he inhales her hair, the stench of bleach in the room overpowering. He’s really love to get on and just fuck her already, but there’s something…

She takes advantage of his distraction and uses her supernatural strength to quite literally throw him onto the bed. He’s taken aback at first, and actually feels like he’s going into shock when his legs hit the iron footboard painfully, and his body hits the bed, bouncing with the sheer force. He jerks, and she laughs at the look in his eyes and just fucking _mounts_ him, his legs spasming against the iron in arousal when she wastes no time going for his zipper.

He pulls his shirt over his head and can’t even smell himself on it – there’s so much bleach, more so now on the bed, and…

Well, fuck. If he had only checked the door number before actually coming inside.

“ _Gordita_.” He breathes out, eyes blown wider in wonderment than a youth on coke, unable to do anything except stare at the ceiling even as Santanico is tugging her tank top over her head. She seems to hear him, because she huffs exasperatedly, and throws the clothing in her hand to the floor.

“I’ve been called a lot of things by lots of different men before, Richard, but ‘chubby’ was never one of them.” She scowls down at him, seemingly more pissed off with his unresponsive face than anything else. And my god, if he could soothe her now, he fucking would, but there’s no way in hell he can do anything but think it over, grasp his hands in the sheets, feel a kill here stronger than he can feel his own damn _Culebra_ nature. Santanico’s scowl deepens as she pulls his hands from the sheets to palm over the toned planes of her stomach, and out of pure reflex, he finds himself gripping her waist, his thumbs caressing over her navel. It’s that action that spurs him to shake the dreaminess out of his head, and breathe in deep, resuming eye contact with Santanico once again.

“Not you, her…” And her scowl retreats a little, but only a little. He blinks his eyes again, and stares up at her, stroking his palms up her ribs. “You were here for it, too.” And he licks across his suddenly dry, bloodied lips with his tongue, never once looking away from her face to catch the exact moment she realises what he’s on about.

Her face clouds over like an oncoming storm, and she inhales, heady and high on the scent of bleach and blood, old and new, like him. Her head snaps back and her eyes open, fresh and bold viper-opal irises and slitting pupils reasserting themselves when she lolls forwards towards him. He breathes steadily once, and flips them. There’s a small delight in her battle cry of surprise as she’s flipped over on the bed onto her back. He’s about to reach under her to rip her whore’s bra off by its damn latches, but she stops him. With a foot. On his fucking shoulder. Hot damn.

He turns to kiss at that too, so fucking horny now from the realisation that they’re screwing _right where he killed and fucked that teller,_ and even hornier considering that he’s screwing Santanico right here, and she’s the one who helped him. She smirks from underneath him, without a doubt feeling him rock hard against her sinuous, sliding thigh. He leans forward, just enough to pin her other leg to her chest, looming down like he knows he can. Damn, he’s supposed to be better at this. But every moment he’s not inside her physically fucking hurts.

She hisses back at him, fangs full out now. All evidence except her legs claims that he’s in bed with a fucking reptile. Whatever’s going on here, though, it’s fucking hot and he wouldn’t change it for a thing. She pulls on his hair, and he falls into her, forehead into hers because he knows she can take it.

His pants and briefs are around his fucking knees by the time he’s sliding home into her, not even bothering to take off her panties, just sliding them to the side. She’s wet and hot inside like a sweet vice, and he grunts at the sensation.

She snarls like a wild fucking beast, and he genuinely thinks he’s done something wrong… Which obviously isn’t the case. Nails go down his back, shredding his skin to smithereens. And that’s fine, she apparently gets what she wants when the pain makes him jar all the way inside of her. Her pleased moan is like a hair trigger – and once Richie starts, he just can’t quite stop. He moves her legs up high, near pinning them to the bed, and she just fucking lets him, mewling with every motion of his hips rutting into her.

The rhythm is rudimentary at best, and her panties keep getting in the fucking way. The sheer chafes across his dick, but underneath him she grows wild. The pleasure grabs him by everywhere she’s hurt him – neck, back, arms when she scratches down there too – not just from his dick.

His mind kicks into gear when she kicks her legs down, spurs up and bites him – like the link they share and the intuition he has didn’t up and off when he became a Culebra like it was supposed to. The bite is harsh and fucking amazing, but he couldn’t feel beyond his own train of thought, even if he wanted to. He has no choice but to let the vision send him into the abyss.

She loves getting fucked like this, loves being hurt and abused and dirty like this. Loves it rough and filthy and sordid, because she’s never been able to just _fuck._ Everyone Santanico has ever made love with worshipped her – would never taint their goddess by doing anything but _making love_ to her. Oh, and she’s wanted a fuck for a long time. Wanted someone to erase all their soft touches and gentle hands with the one thing no one has given her, the closest thing being when Malvado raped her in that little pinstriped corset. But she wants control too. Wants to be hurt, and hurt in return. She’s just like him, and damn it’s good to find someone who understands him! But who the fuck is-

“Who the fuck is Malvado?” And its kinda out of Richie’s mouth before he can help it, snarled through a thrust. Her fangs are out of his neck, retracting so fast he feels empty inside. He snaps back to himself, as if burned by the sun, away from his own damn head. She cries out this time, and it’s not pleasured, or hurt from the force of his thrusts or his hands bruising her shoulders.

It’s enraged. She’s completely in-fucking-furiated.

“Who. The. Fuck.” And wow, she’s really angry. His blood is all over her face, and she’s shoving him off with all the strength she can muster, hissing when he pulls out. She sends him sprawling to his back on the bed, and Richie, if he even had coherent thought right now, would think it looked a little ridiculous; his erect cock flapping back to his stomach, legs going into the air from the power of her, still tangled in his pants and briefs. “Don’t you ever look into my fuckin’ head again.”

And when he’s no longer lurching on the bed, and no longer in pain from subsiding whiplash, he straightens up and looks over to where she’s pulling on her pants and shirt again. “I didn’t mean to.” He immediately tries, though he knows it falls on deaf ears when she looks over, all the savagery and power of a coiling snake in her glare. She grabs down at the floor to one of his shirt jackets, and pulls it on over her form too, still holding his eyes.

Richie breathes heavily. The fucking fuck. Just when he thinks they’re all out of the damn ocean, and there’s still another one to fucking cross. He’s done with thinking. He’s done with being a Cule-whatever. He’s done with emotional people, and why, oh why, is he still with three of them?

“I’m going to get some air.” And she walks out, shoeless as the day she was born, and doesn’t look back. Not even when the force of her door slam breaks the hinges.

Richie just lays there. And lays there. And debates death. And death because of blue balls. And… and sheep. Maybe counting sheep… And fuck tucking himself, still slick with her juices, in, or worrying about how badly he fucked up with Santanico, or putting a damn shirt on, or cleaning up his _bleeding everywhere_ body; or debating Santanico’s fucked up, horrifying history. He’ll fall asleep right fucking here.

-

Another idea that, in all retrospect, was definitely a bad one. He wakes up to the scent and sensation of his own abdominal flesh burning…

Yelps in surprise, and hisses at the pain. Thinks it’s a dream, so he tries to sleep through it. Turns over to let his back melt through instead, because he’ll be damned if he’s ruining the perfection of his chest. And ouch, for a dream, it really does fucking hurt.

“Fuck, Richie!” And that’s Seth’s voice, and there’s noise over the sizzling of Culebra flesh, thumping fast footsteps and the metallic sound of curtains being drawn. No more burning. Even though his back and stomach are still bubbling, and his blood feels magna-hot, dripping down his spine. “Fuck, Fuck, Richard, are you alright?”

And there’s a pressure launched onto the bed beside him, hands pulling him over. Okay, so not a dream. He blinks open his eyes blearily, now led on his back, and fuck if Seth above him didn’t recoil just then. Shit. Opens his mouth to test the length of his teeth under his tongue, and shit. Richie tries to normalise them both to more humane-looking things, but when Seth relaxes and pulls him up sitting into a hug, he doesn’t fucking bother. He looks over Seth’s shoulder, still blinking sleep out of his eyes. Feels his teeth again. They’re human, which, okay. Maybe they do react on their own to threat?

Richie realises that the whole room is pretty much covered in blackening Culebra blood. There’s small patches of it everywhere – mostly the floor, his shirt on the floor, and the door, where he’d probably shoved Santanico against it hard enough to make her head bleed.

The bed is covered in it too, though mostly where he’d slept. None of his wounds are still open, but he remembers the vicious tugs of her teeth, nails. Pussy. Damn. He hopes she’s found her way inside too, and isn’t currently literally dying in the Texan heat.

“Morning.” He says groggily, and Seth lets him go. Richie pulls back to lean on his hands on the bed. Realises his dick’s still out. Tucks himself back in with a disheartened sigh and zips up. Seth has the lack of decency to laugh.

“Sorry.” Seth says, and it actually sounds heartfelt. “Forgot you… You-”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.” Richie yawns, and wow, he finds out he actually doesn’t care. Usually, it’d be any reason to bitch at Seth. Whatever, he’s too tired. “Bit of blood, my back’ll heal up.” He huffs out, and lifts his legs off the side of the bed. He feels Seth’s eyes on his back, eyeing up the fast scabbing-over burns with just a hint of worry.

“Do you want-” And there’s a moment where Richie realises what Seth’s offering, and flicks his head around to look deep into his eyes. Seth’s sincere as fuck, and it makes Richie’s insides rumble with something appreciative. Instead, he shrugs and waves his brother off, standing to his feet.

“Only joking.” And Seth laughs, deep and hearty, getting to his feet too.

“Looks like you had enough last night.” Seth gestures to the ruined room, and Richie really doesn’t want to think about exactly what happened last night – she was everything he’d wanted and more, and the stupid fucking intuitions had fucked with everything. Damn.

Instead, he smiles up at Seth and goes to find his shirt. “Sure.” He murmurs, and Seth just keeps fucking watching him.

“Where is our _reina de la luna,_ anyway?” Seth frowns, and looks around the room, into the open door of the bathroom.

“She left.” Richie mutters nonchalantly, and pulls his bloody shirt on, wincing at the pain as it chafes the scarring at his back. Seth carries on staring, eyebrows furrowed.

“So she came with, just so you could-”

“Not exactly.” Richie says again, and he still doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s not that he loves her or anything, because if he were capable of love… He probably wouldn’t be capable of unjustified murder. It’s definitely not love, because she has a body made of sins, and strength like ten men, and she’s his… She made him. It’s not love, because all he wants is her body, and her power. He knows he adores her, but it was only so intense and all-consuming when she wasn’t real.

“I pissed her off.” He finishes, and Seth’s laugh bubbles out – he’s not even trying to contain it.

“So did you, uh…” And Seth looks around the room, still fucking giggling like a teenager. “Did you fuck, or did you fight?”

Richie gives Seth his biggest scowl – he’s not in the fucking mood. He’s just woken up, and it’s still sunny, and regardless of what he told Seth earlier… He’s fucking hungry.

“We had sex, if that’s what you mean.”

-

Surprisingly, Santanico comes back that very day. Richie’s hustled over to Seth and Kate’s room in a fucking sheet after realising its 2pm, so sundown is a long way off. They make plans about where next to go over yet another bottle of bourbon, and Kate talks about her life-long dream to go to California. And then Seth about his life-long dream to hit the National Bank in San Diego. They coincide. Richie supposes they can make it there in a few days, as long as they go via El Paso.

And then there she is. Bursting open the door in a motorcycle helmet and heavy leathers. She’s smart – she won’t burn up like that. She closes the door and removes the helmet, and Richie is surprised that no one, not even Seth, draws their pistols. Like they also knew who she was even with the helmet on. Maybe it’s the way the leathers cling to her body.

“Well damn.” Richie hears Seth say, but he can’t focus – he’s staring at the flip of her hair as it settles back down. If any Culebra could come back from burning sunlight, and look twice as sexy as they did the night before, they’d be damned. Which is what she is.

“Richie.” She calls, and he stands to attention from the motel couch, holds the sheet over his head again.

“Next door?” He muses, like he doesn’t look completely ridiculous wrapping a sheet over himself. Kate giggles, and he knows it’s at him. Whatever.

Santanico nods and slips on the helmet. They leave quickly, and he doesn’t spare another glance at Seth or Kate. No matter how ridiculous he probably looks right now. No matter how much they’re probably laughing at him.

The door is broken and leant up against the inside wall due to last night’s activities, so Richie guides Santanico through first and fits it back in place precariously. He removes the sheet and leaves it on the floor, keeps his mind clear. He will not fuck this up again.

He turns around, and her visor-ed helmet, now off, slips from her fingers onto the floor. She looks at him, wild desperation in her golden eyes like a strange form of hope, and moves up to kiss him like it’s the first time.

Surprised and a little taken-aback, he allows the kiss. Deepens it when he realises he can. Leans her backward with the force of his hunger until she’s having to pace towards the bed. Breaks away, saliva connecting them until she steps further away again, adjacent to the bed.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He whispers, and for the second time in twelve hours, strips out of his pants and briefs. He’s hard, and is kind of surprised that he can be. The past three days have been full of more unsatisfied erections than his teenage years.

She’s frantic in her motions, peeling hot leather down her legs, unzipping it free from her chest. The hurt, wild desperation is all over her. It almost hurts Richie to see her this needy, this subservient. She’s been without him, been inside the darkness of her head, her past. And now she needs him to rid her of it.

But Richie is thinking now, and knows he needs to stop. Without words, he strips off his shirt again and watches her kick the clanking leather and metal from her ankles, drop the rumples of the jacket from her shoulders. Santanico looks to him, and he sees the hesitant little girl Kate once was. She’s scared, and frantic, and lost, while all at the same time being immortal, invincible. Unchallenged. Free. She’s so complicated, but he thinks he finally gets it now, seeing her like this. She’s the undying, mythical _diosa_ of the Titty Twiser. She’s the reluctant little girl, cursed to slavery.

She’s neither of those things when she steps into his space and pulls his head down by his hair to kiss her. She’s _his_ , and the sex and power sweeps into him groin-up. She’s clad in only cotton bikini panties and a black brassiere, and she’s his.

He walks her back over to the bed, refusing his mind train of thought anymore. She goes willingly and falls under him as he moulds her where he wants her – on top of him, straddling his thighs. She strips off her panties awkwardly, lines them up, no need for foreplay.

“I want you, Richie.” She says, and it’s deep and sultry. She begins to sink down, and all he feels is her hot, vice pussy clenching around his tip, then his shaft. His head throws back, as if by its own accord, but he manages to find her face the moment she releases her hand on his dick and falls on him, heavy, as he sinks all the way in.

Her thighs reach his, and he allows her moments of setting the rhythm herself, slow slide up, hard plunge down, before trying to offer his own.

She’s like slick velvet over his dick, and it really is moments before he’s pounding up into her when she retreats away, not even bothering to match the rhythm. Her head snaps back on a groan, and he slides up seated to catch it with his hand. In this position, he can’t get faster, but he can get deeper. She’s so sweet around him, sweeter still when they lock eyes and he thrusts up again. She’s so beautiful, hair everywhere, human teeth retracting to _Culebra_.

He’s content with watching in this position while he motions up with his hips every now and again and she spreads her legs just a little wider so he can get further in. Her eyes are glittering, and it’s somehow more intense that it was last time. Her hands are at his shoulder-blades, and he wants them to grow to claws, and rip his back to shreds. The image and phantom pain at the image makes him thrust up hard enough to set her eyes rolling back in her head.

He takes advantage of her distraction to unclip her brassiere, but a vicious clench from her pussy has him fumbling at her ribs, fingers bruising and punishing as he ruts upwards. Fuck, she really does have the pussy of a goddess. Instead, she lets go of his shoulders to unclip her own bra and lets the multiple straps fall off her shoulders. There’s a smug, sick sense of satisfaction Richie feels as he tosses the thing to the floor with her biker gear.

“You’re so sexy.” He bites out, and thinks he’s done something wrong yet again when she looks at him quizzically, tits bouncing as she moves on his dick. The effort strains his thighs, but Richie realises that they both are devoid of sweat. It shouldn’t really make him twitch powerfully inside her, but it does anyway. The look vanishes from her face upon feeling his dick, and her head tilts back again in pleasure.

He tries his luck and tips them backwards so he can give her the fuck he really wants to give. Turns out, he’s done the right thing when she moans at the angle change and spreads her legs around him. He grunts out when she tightens around him again, and one of his hands snap to fist in the sheets the other side of her breast, the other going to flick at her nipple. He fucks her hard- fast, and she takes it. Bathes in it. He kisses her again, and he knows she’s close when she spasms around him again and snaps one of her own hands to the wrought iron of the footboard. Damn. Her other goes to his hair, and holds him in place for the kiss she wants to give – all tongue and teeth.

He grunts rhythmically now, usually ashamed of his noises but not anymore. Not when he pulls back, still thrusting violently into her, to show her his viper eyes and fangs.

“I want you.” He hisses out, words sounding unnatural through the teeth, and she unexpectedly surges up to grab the nape of his neck. She pulls him down onto her, softly so that he can still angle his head where he wants it. His nipples chafe hers and he hisses again with the sensation. She’s fucking his, she’s fucking beautiful.

“Then take me,” She hisses, and it’s a finality that can only be addressed by sinking his teeth into the sweet spot just above her clavicle. Her breathing hitches – her legs shake around his, and my god. She’s coming, just from the bite, and it’s so fucking hot that he can’t help moaning into the broken flesh of her neck, even as the blood soaks his neck, chest, her tits. He fucks her through her orgasm, until she clenches around him, practically convulses, and her pussy draws up oh-so-tight when he retract his fangs and licks up the Culebra blood at her neck.

He stays seated for minutes, wanting, _needing_ , to thrust, but not going to do anything of the sort while she’s led under him, gasping for breath like a man drowning, still fucking clenching around his dick.

It feels like obeying when she kicks him back with one of those powerful, erotic feet, and he falls willingly again, like he always does for her. On his back, vulnerable, like an unremarkable tortoise on its shell. She goes with him, and mounts him. But it isn’t enough to have her immobile on him. He feels like punching the fucking bed, because he needs blood, and murder, and flesh.

It’s enough, though, when she looks into him like she knows his soul. Pulls off most of the way to grab his dick and keep it still while she dismounts. He groans as she crawls down between his thighs, and my god, he hasn’t had a prettier image since she first did. Though now, when her _Culebra_ teeth extend, it isn’t threatening, or a turn off. It’s perfect.

She keeps the hand on his dick, face between his thighs, as she bites down near enough to his femoral artery that his own tainted blood spurts up onto her face, her chin when she can’t fully seal her mouth over the puncture.

And then she starts jerking him off. And holy fuck, as if the feeling of his own leg being torn to shreds by her teeth weren’t enough, his dick is… She thumbs the head, and by this point, he’s completely careless of the noise he’s making. Bucks up into her touch and her teeth, as if the wound couldn’t be one slip away from fatal.

White out.

There’s a literal white out of indescribable pleasure, and some part of his intuition is telling him Santanico is kinda pissed off that he’d came on her face, but the other part is telling him that he should forget about it, because it was kind of her fault that she’d angled his dick her way anyway.

Fuck. And the other part, that has completely nothing to do with _Culebra_ nature or ‘inner knowing’ is slumping, still pulsing out the last of his orgasm, finding shelter in the bed. It feels like every draw of blood she takes strings another pulse of heat from him, and it’s too fucking much. He’s oversensitive too fucking quickly, and it hurts.

In the end, he kicks her off weakly. She can only giggle, and lick at his thighs. Giggle again at the way it makes his whole lower body, dick not excluded, spasm.

“That good?” She muses, and his eyes are still closed, nothing left to say, just nodding and humming weakly in response.

He passes out again as she curls around his legs like a literal snake, tongue still flicking out to clean him of blood.


	3. Kate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this not long after Santanico was uploaded but when it came to writing the physical smut, I felt physically drained. It felt forced.  
> ...  
> So I left it for waaaayyy too long, drank too much one random night in July and picked it up again. It's not amazing. But it makes me feel happier for having finally uploaded this chapter. 
> 
> Yet again, ya'll gotta let this drunkard know if there are any typos. It actually feels like a cop-out writing for this fandom sober...

Santanico leaves the week after, and as expected as it was, it still leaves Richie shell-shocked and slightly embittered. He can still feel her like a receding toothache at the back of his mind, and assumes that maybe that feeling will remain forevermore. They’re still bound in blood and soul, so even the distance of their bodies won’t make a damn difference – she remains present sometimes, and it’s often like he can feel her when she’s passionately angry, horny, _hungry_.

It’s a strange sensation, but he gets used to it quickly. Wonders if she can feel the same on her end too. It’s been a week more since she left them at El Paso, and all three of their merry band are stuck in the same motel, in Phoenix. Miles and miles still from San Diego.

Richie wonders if that’s his fault – he hasn’t killed anyone around here, so there’s been no reason to move on abruptly. Seth thinks he’s depressed – but also thinks it’s kind of hard to tell because obviously Richie is only really mobile after sunset. Kate… Kate probably is. She mourns the loss of her brother so greatly that even Richie coddling her like a child, lifting her into his lap and peppering kisses over her cheeks when he feels particularly perverse, doesn’t settle her.

More often than not, Richie finds Kate staring out the window in the early hours. More often than not, he’ll approach that window from the opposite side, blood staining his cheeks, because he’ll be damned if he eats clean. She’d stare at him with wonderment in her eyes, then close the curtains abruptly when she’d had her fill. But ‘often’ is only relative to how many nights that they have spent in this god-forsaken dump. Three days can’t build a habit.

Ever since Santanico, Richie’s love life has actually been barren. To be perfectly honest, he’d expected explosiveness out of the Twister from both Seth and Kate, and instead has been given two bits of human wreckage to heal and repair. Seth, who has never seen so much blood and death in his life. Seth, who is probably still trying to cope with wanting to fuck his own brother. Seth, who never has had very good ways at dealing with anything.

Which is probably why Richie’s sat down with Seth now, tightening the band on his arm, flicking a vein in his arm nonchalantly. Richie looks over his shoulder to see Kate staring, eyes wide as saucers. She hates violence. Yet loves seeing them abuse each other’s addictions. He’s smelt pussy twice in the air today, once when he was feeding from Seth earlier, and now while he’s shooting up liquid gold into Seth with a sterilized needle.

He holds Katie’s gaze, because he’d be damned if the girl-arousal scent was coming from either him or Seth right now. Holds her gaze, even when he addresses Seth. “I could have done this a more fun way, y’know.”

“Whatever, Richard.” And maybe he does break away from his eyesex with Kate to draw the needle out and observe Seth falling back onto the bed, head hitting the pillows as his eyes cloud over and de-focus.

Richie wants to probe, but also supposes he won’t get a clearer answer out of older Gecko. Whatever. He gives up, gives in, and turns to Kate, and she turns away and stands up, as if they’re both leaving Seth to his own devices. She’s got this look about her – a doe-eyed humbled stare – and Richie begins to wonder if she, too, is high.

Instead, she leaves the bedroom through the open door, never once looking back, a silent intensity giving away that she wants to be followed. In a tense moment, she casts a look over her shoulder, only halfway and never once meeting his eyes, instead with her hair shadowing her face, eyes to the floor.

“We got any bourbon left?” She says, practically croaks. He thinks she’s crying again, though can’t be sure. Kate’s always moderately private about her own sadness – as if he or Seth would view it as a sign of weakness, and would leave her at the roadside for it.

“Mm.” He hums a response, and she turns her head back towards her destination and carries on in eerie silence. Kate makes her way to a nondescript wooden cabinet by the couch in their micro sitting room, pulling out a near-full bottle of bourbon with an almost victorious noise. He supposes the same look would be on her face, if she would only let him see it.

Richie closes the door as quietly as he can behind him, figuring that Seth would want some privacy during his heroine-fuelled daze. He follows Kate into the small space, collapsing onto the couch and taking the minute to breathe. It’d been a stressful morning, and Richie is too horny to be dealing with drug-deals, or sad underage girls, or really just anything that’s not his own dick.

He thinks of an excuse to run off to the shower – and then thinks better of it. Kate, alone. With more than enough whiskey to kill her and a very high Seth in the room next door. Instead of going to jerk off, he huffs and gestures to where she’s pouring herself a glass. “Pour me one too.”

And shockingly, she does. If she cared for his lack of manners, she probably still wouldn’t be with them. She hands him a glass in her small, small hands, and takes a rather large swig of her own. He’s mindful of the wince that follows, but she swigs again. Why, they’re breeding their own little stiff drinker here! She pours again, glass a little fuller than she’d first done it. He sips his own drink slowly, eyes locked on her. The slight sway of her hips as she drops the bottle back onto the cabinet top, small motions of her nipples, bare under a pale grey tank. She’s a wreck, she’s emotional, she’s a fucking teenager. It hasn’t stopped him from wanting it before, doesn’t stop him now.

She takes the seat next to him on the couch, managing to only wobble a little bit. A strange, woozy and somewhat satisfied smile is on her face, and it’s undeniably peculiar. Especially when he’s stretched out, knees wide apart, so he’s taking up the best part of the couch and she’s pressed against him ever so slightly. He sips again, feels the burn on his tongue, in his throat, hit like an old enemy. She giggles, and he’s forced to turn to meet her gaze properly by the small notion.

“What?” His voice is hushed, but still bold. Richie wants to – needs to know what’s on her mind. Whether it’d be helpful to his dick or not. Her eyes are somewhat shielded by her hair, but her wet, open mouth isn’t.

She giggles again, takes another swig of her bourbon. “If God had told me I’d be road-tripping with junkie and vampire bank-robbing brothers a couple of weeks back, I’d have renounced my faith.” She hiccups, laughs again. He allows his lips to perk up a little as she shakes her hair out of her face and locks eyes with him. She sips again, and he’s briefly reminded of Mia Wallace’s ‘awkward silences’ speech in Pulp Fiction. Why do people feel the need to natter about bullshit, when really, they could just enjoy silence together?

He smiles a little at her, only a little so it doesn’t hint at a start of another conversation. She blinks at him, all small and wide eyed. Swallows a mouthful of her whiskey before setting it down at the foot of the couch. Looks at him again, reclines back in her seat. She’s asking for something and he knows it. Well, maybe this should be the universal reason to break awkward silences.

“What are your objections to sleeping with me?”

And Kate doesn’t even snort for that, just holds his gaze, steely blues softened by booze. “Why?”

“So I can work on tearing them down.” And maybe he’s appearing as emotionless as he usually would, before any of the shit at the Twister. She likes it that way, though. Likes him creepy and unreadable, fatal and poker-faced.

And just like Richie knew she would, she gasps but doesn’t look away. Can’t look away, even as she begins to sway with intoxication. He adjusts his position, as to straighten up and tower over her. Another gasp – her legs clench together viciously, and he can feel the motion running through the couch to him. He breaks the eye contact to size her up, exaggerating because _he knows_.

“I don’t have any.” She murmurs. Doesn’t look away, not even when the alcohol flush across her cheeks fills out higher. He wonders if this is true, and withholds the surprise at the response to keep the tension in the air. Eyes on her. Waiting for her to elaborate. She does. “Circumstance. Santanico.” Waves a hand in the air to create this imaginary list. “Seth.”

Richie leans back as if not to tower over her, something filling his mind the moment she said ‘circumstance’. “You wanted me to fuck you in California?”

She doesn’t break away from his gaze, it not a surprise to her that he knew. Maybe there are some things one can get used to. “No.” She says, quietly. Her eyes narrow for a brief moment, and she sips from her whiskey again. “I wanted to be taken for the first time in California.” And it’s almost an embarrassed murmur, and oh… He’d known she was fresh as an unpicked daisy, but had she known that he did? Richie doesn’t really know how to respond. It seemed like an awful big deal admitting it, so maybe he should follow it up with an admission of his own?

He sips his scotch, crosses the inside of his left knee over his right, boot sole knocking her thighs. He stares into her again, and her eyelashes flutter up to meet his. “I won’t be gentle.” A look aimed straight ahead at Seth’s door again. Unremorseful, yet brooding. As Richie normally is. “Can’t be.”

“I know.” She whispers back, blinking back wetness in her eyes. “I don’t want you to be.”

And even though he knew this from the jump, hearing it out loud still has him sharply inhaling once and twitching in his pants. He takes another sip, careful not to white-knuckle the glass. If he did, it’d break. He’s still not used to all the Culebra strength. “Why Santanico?” Richie says, eyes now in some kind of staring competition with the door handle.

Kate shrugs – he’s not looking at her, yet can still feel the shift in her shoulders in the air and her exaggerated exhale. “I didn’t know if I was substitute for her this whole time. I wouldn’t have minded – I just wanted to see what you’d both do afterwards.” And what a poor, sweet, insecure girl.

“I’m callous and cruel, Kate.” And now he does turn to lock eyes with her again, sincere and dark like thunder clouds. “She won’t change that about me.” _You like that about me,_ he doesn’t add on. He can afford to be a smug prick later. Not now when the air smells like tension before a good, intense fucking. Or wank, if you’re as unlucky as Richie normally is.

Kate sighs, and finally slips back into herself, looking away and picking up the dregs of her scotch. Careless of Richie’s leg in her personal space, she folds herself up on the couch till her knees are on her chest, curled into a tight ball. She finishes her drinks, passes the glass to Richie. “Fill me up, please.” He wonders whether this is her idea of talking dirty, though he takes the glass and realises what she means. And with a slight huff, he does. Callous and cruel, pouring another drink for a little girl much too scared of her own desires to complete his.

“So do you have any reservations anymore?” Richie hands her the drink, and she takes it. Wonders whether sex is on the table today, or not. She sips from the glass, a sight hiccup shuddering through her.

“I should know what God’s advice is.” She says, louder than before. And Richie rolls his eyes .“But if God allowed Culebra on earth with all their sins, I’m sure he would turn a blind eye to this.”

And as he finishes rolling his eyes, she rolls into his lap, so wobbly and unpractised that the gesture would be inelegant if not for the dainty size of her. Okay, sex? Definitely on the table. She leans her head down, simultaneously laying her drink on the coffee table by him, and it’s not fucking fair that someone who is so virginal doesn’t even fumble despite the awkward multitasking. Not having the same shade of patience and courtesy as she does, Richie throws his to the floor, deliberately avoiding the sofa. Stains are easier to remove from wood flooring, after all. The glass smashes – Kate hisses and he feels her hips buck wildly forward into his once – hears her make a sound that sounds both displeased and awed at her own bodies reaction to his actions.

Damn, this girl’s a whore for violence.

He uses his free hands to cradle her face in them, swipe her hair out the way, not gentle by any stretch of the word but careful enough not to tear through the fine brunette strands. And then she kisses him – no preamble or anything of the like. Laves her tongue into his mouth, thick and sloppy with alcohol, and he pushes her back enough to bite it. Damn, it’s hot. Somewhere into the kiss, Kate completely forgets to control herself, if she had ever even tried. Hips bucking into his erection, slow and hard, small little moans escaping her. She’s so horny, so hot in his arms.

He pushes at her to move her away, if only to drag his arms down to under the swell of her generous rear and lift her fully onto him, grind her clothed pussy against his enclosed dick. She moans – shrill and surprised like the sound had been torn from her. Fuck, that’s hot. Not as hot as when suddenly, Richie light-bulb moments and sits up, turns ninety degrees and plonks back on the couch again, right in the centre so he can recline back to lie there. And damn does she get the memo, straddling his lap, sitting herself up above him as he lays there, hips still incessantly moving and mewling like the attention his zipper gives her clit is just that good. Just that much better than anything else. Well, he’d show her just how much better it all could be.

It’s an awkward move to pull himself down the couch, especially because Richie has to hold Kate above him with a hand to stop her keeping him there to grind on. She whines pitifully when he stops her motions, panted out like she was close to coming just from that.  He grins; ignores the full body shudder that becomes violent spasms as it reaches his dick. Hooks his legs further over the far armrest of the couch to pull himself down quicker, and. Finally.

Katie-Cakes gasps, awed, and stops moving abruptly, leaning into the two hands he has on her waist as his breath cools over the slick spot on her panties. Her head tilts back with just the simple idea and knowledge of what’s going to happen, and he wishes he could look into her eyes just before he tongues at her covered clit, but the folds of her skirt are over his face. Well, that’s one negative to having her dress prettily. She gasps reverently as the feel of his tongue soaks through into her intimate flesh, and not giving her a moment to regain composure, he laps her up again, again, again.

She’s writhing above him and soaked through like an especially juicy peach when Richie tentatively removes a hand from her waist and hooks his fingers through the elastic waistband of her nondescript panties. When it comes to Kate, Richie muses, a lot is nondescript about her. Her clothes, underwear, straight brunette hair and meek attitude. He supposes it’s why he likes her – she’s the perfect girl next door, and with him, she is sin personified. She stumbles a bit, finally balancing on both knees either side of his face when he takes his other hand to slowly pull her panties out of the way.

He gets them halfway down her thighs when she stops him with her hands, and elegantly stands above him. The gesture reminds him of Santanico, all powerful, sleek and in-control. His dick is instantly drooling pre-cum into his boxers. She strips her panties down her thighs and tries to discard them, scrunching them up into a cute little ball and throwing them. But Richie’s reactions are fast enough to snatch them out of the air with a hand. And press them to his face. And breathe deeply of all that little girl sex-musk.

He expects a slap. What he gets instead is a sharp intake of breath as she lowers herself back down to straddle his face, her eyes melting closed as he steadies his unoccupied hand back on her hips to help her down. Richie hurls her panties to god knows where, having found something better to entertain himself with. Her eyes spring open and she moans gently when his breath cools across her pussy, and he wishes her could see her face when his tongue hits her clit, but yet again, the skirt covers him and his nostrils are filled with the scent of sex.

Richie’s not complaining.

Neither is Kate.

She humps his tongue like the inexperienced virgin she is, and he helps her with it, pulling her hips to and fro with her motions, never letting up; frantic muscle working her down and building her up. Richie considers the fact that he doesn’t really give head to women a lot. Considers the fact that he might have the technique down from the noises Kate’s making. Regrets the fact that he never went down on Santanico, never tasted her, never sank his teeth into her pussy and tasted her blood there too. And now he feels it – the mixture of blood and slick on his chin, sticky and making smutty, tacky noises as she propels down onto his face, god yes –

And pulls away, moments before he opens his mouth to release the terrifying pincers. Moments before his skin bubbles into scales – Goddamn it. He keeps both hands to her waist as she struggles, and the noise that erupts out of the girl is feral and needy. She wants it, wants it so much it’s killing her; and Seth must be having weird heroin-fuelled sex dreams right now if that noise was as loud as Richie heard it. He stops the girl from humping back down to his mouth, no matter how much he wants to have her back there again, bleeding and wet and _salty_ on his tongue, in his throat. She gasps and cries out when she realises it’s futile and shoves at him with her hands, a sex-craze taking over.

“Why did you stop?!”

And the only answer to that question is to let go of her with one hand and use it to pull her skirts over his head and look up at her. Full-on Mexican Dracula. And she looks down at him. Gasps. He’ll never get tired of that. Now that his head is out of the place where her heat is evident and scent is most pungent, he tries to retract the irritating things. It fails, miserably, because he’s only spent a couple weeks at most as a Culebra, and that kind of training takes years.

While he’s fumbling with that, he only barely registers Kate balancing herself on her knees again and bringing her own hands to her own pussy. Richie’s teeth and dick throb in unison at the sight right in front of him.

“In me.” She breathes out, blushing furiously not only from exertion, and, well, okay. Not the expected response but today has been anything but expected. Needless to say, he scoots up the sofa, moving until her hips are back over his waist again and tries to think about anything but blood. It’s not working. His dick jolts painfully when her wet fingers move frenetically over his buttons and zipper. He knocks her hands away, and she shudders on his lap. Richie thinks he’s hit her too hard, but it appears not hard enough when they move back to her pussy.

He works on his buttons, his zipper – a chore when this aroused. He breathes a breathy moan when his fingers ghost over his dick and has to ignore the sensation to arch up and pull his suit pants under his ass. The swell in his boxers hits Kate’s fingers with the motion, and he groans as he looks down to see her with two inside her pussy, gasping as she gets herself ready for his dick. It’s so hot, so hot he stops with his pants down his thighs to pull down his boxers and let his dick, spitting pre, spring out. She gasps when she sees it, and he’s reminded of every Brazzer’s porno ever until he remembers it’s probably the first time she’s seen a penis.

Which, of course, is another reason for her to lift off her wet fingers and move closer over him. Before she loses every semblance of self-control, however, he’s there to grab her hand and suck her fingers clean, resting them on the places his vamp teeth have laid bare. Sweet, just like her.

“Culebra’s infertile?” Kate breathes, lining them up with the hand he isn’t sucking like an open vein, like she already knows the answer. He nods, barely able to register anything else except the tight hot heat of her entrance around his tip and the pull of scales on his face, the rush of her blood and the pain is his gums. Richie releases her fingers from his mouth and she immediately puts the hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah.” He breathes, because if it’s one thing that he and Santanico talked about, it was the fact that he could never create a new generation the conventional way. And he has absolutely no time to think before she impales her sweet, tight pussy down on him.

And it’s good. So good he thrusts up viciously as she cries out in pain, and the scent of blood is heavy in the air, emanating from where she’s sweetest. If he had any chance of retracting his teeth before, he certainly doesn’t have it now. Especially not when she collapses forward into him, hands slipping on his shoulders to bury her head in his chest, whining pathetically like a skewered animal.

“Wait, wait,  God.” She moans and he stills his hips inside her as she pushes on his chest to curl herself back up. Amongst the sex, amongst his own blood pounding in his ears, twitching and boiling in his dick, Richie has time to laugh.

“Your God going to help you now, baby?” And his own hands settle back on her hips as she pants, dick twitching inside her.

“I don’t want him to.” She says – breaths. Winces when she breathes for the way it makes her cunt clench on his cock. He chuckles a little, tries to keep his breath at the way she’s spasming around him, getting used to the feel of something that broad penetrating her.

She rocks herself on it experimentally, and clenches. Moans. Richie intakes a breath for the tightness of her pussy around him. He’s had any number of women before, including a certain one with the healing factor of an aged Wolverine, but none this tight. None with this dense, fleshy grip around his cock, better than a throat to fuck into.

Well, almost better.

But not when rigor mortis sets in.

And Richie is laughing and groaning all at once as Kate begins to ride him in earnest, banishing the thoughts from his head, because even though murder is hot, it’s not the current motive. His fangs retract, as if thinking about bloodless bodies ruined the lusting moment. Though not the moment he’s in right now, hands full of teen girl hips and dick smothered in tight, wet pussy.

He lets her have her way with him for as long as he can handle, and then flips them onto the floor, cushioning her head as she falls beneath him. They land with a thud, and she breaths out a noise of pain and one of pleasure when the landing jolts him further inside her.

Richie fucks the girl in earnest now, moves to kiss her deeply and then to nibble and smother her throat in sloppy bites – a parody of what he could really do to her. Katie doesn’t shut her mouth for one minute – forgets where she is and who she is long enough to cry out, to shudder in his arms.

To come when he bites down particularly hard on a vicious thrust.

Richie’s not even close yet – for all that the tight, spasmodic clamps of her pussy are doing to him. He’s not drunk enough and not sober enough to feel a sufficient build at the base of his spine and behind Culebra teeth, but he’s well aware that Kate can come, and will come.

Again, again.

And again

**Author's Note:**

> Three parts remain, being as I kinda confused myself with why no one had actually had sex yet when I reached the end. Also, I felt it kinda trashy to put in another 5k words on the end of unexpected pure gratuitous smut, regardless of how trashy the whole damn thing was all the way through.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, tell me exactly how nasty I am for ever writing this down below.


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